


Perpetual Returnings

by cjdjordan



Category: Gabrielle - Fandom, Xena - Fandom, Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-06-07 04:00:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 27,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6784318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjdjordan/pseuds/cjdjordan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lifetime after lifetime, they find one another again.  It's not as romantic as you'd think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own any of the characters except the ones I made up. With all the talk of the looming reboot, this is my version. It is multi-chapter; how many chapters, I'm not sure yet. It may or may not be explicit later on, and it may or may not contain some violence later on. I would love some feedback and your thoughts. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 1

  
It only took a look. That’s all it ever took. One look and all the memories from all the past lives, all the triumphs and losses and everything in between, they all came flooding back. All the loving and fighting and battles and missed opportunities and words unsaid and too many words uttered, every embarrassment, every heartbreak, every joke, every everything all came flooding back.

  
She blinked at me, her expression mostly passive but slightly bewildered. After the briefest of moments, she came back to herself and crossed one long trousered leg over the other. Her pumps were stylish but functional. Her business suit showed her off without being vulgar. She wore all black.

  
Without a word or waiting for an invitation, I took a seat at her tiny little table at the back of the hotel bar.

  
She was stunning; her hair thick, long and dark brown. Her eyes were so brown they were almost black. Her skin was a luscious olive tone, and her business suit was tailored for such a beautiful woman of her height. She turned heads, and there was something about her that said she knew it.

  
I recognized that attitude.

  
“Paula Alvarado,” she said, following a custom we’d established in the last few incarnations. “American, thirty, lawyer.

  
“Evan Crabtree,” I responded. “Canadian, artist, thirty-three.”

  
She quirked an eyebrow. “You’re older than me. That’s never happened. ”

“You must have gotten held up somewhere. What are you drinking?”

  
“Scotch.”

  
I motioned to the server to bring two.

  
I knew she was studying me and I shifted in my seat a little. It made me uncomfortable.

  
“Where do you live?” I asked.

  
“Miami. You?”

  
“Vancouver. So why are you here?”

  
“Conference,” she said, nodding to the right.

  
I glanced over at the placard: _Technology and the Law Conference._

  
“You?” she asked.

  
“I have an opening at a gallery here.”

  
“What’s your medium?”

  
“Photography.”

  
“Are you very famous?”

  
“Some people know my name.”

  
The drinks came and we took a moment to sip them and reflect quietly in our own little worlds.

  
“I’m married,” she said after a few moments, then flashed her gold band in the glow of the recessed lighting overhead.

  
“Congratulations,” I said. I shot down my Scotch and then waved at the bartender for another.

  
“What about you?”

  
“No. Very, very, incessantly single.”

  
“Hey,” said a man in an expensive suit, pulling up a chair to our little table. “We start again in twenty.” He smiled at me. “You make a friend?”

  
I knew I probably didn’t look like most of the people Paula spoke to. I wore leather pants, thick motorcycle boots, a velvet vest over a white shirt. My eye make-up was heavy and black and easy to see through my round, light-blue tinted glasses, and my hair was thick, disorderly and fushia.

  
“Alan, this is Evan. Evan’s an old friend. Alan is a colleague.”

  
I was in no mood to talk to a lawyer, and in no mood to rearrange my life again for my soul mate.

  
I reached into my bag and pulled out one of the postcards for my opening. I really just wanted to walk away. I really just wanted to not deal with it again. But we’d tried that and it didn’t work. It would never work.

  
But maybe I could postpone it, at least.

  
“My opening is tomorrow night,” I said, standing after shooting the second Scotch, “Please come.”

  
“I will, Evan,” Paula replied.

  
I met her eye. My heart stopped and all my breath left me. Her eyes, in all her incarnations, weren’t always blue, but they were always her eyes and they always pierced my heart. The reaction was briefer than brief but palpable for the rest of the day.

  
***

  
“You’re exceptionally talented. But then, you always were.”

  
I felt her behind me. I had felt that she was there before she’d even spoken.

  
“Pick one,” I replied. “I’ll give it to you.”

  
The opening was a success. I was always happy to see people enjoying my work, but I never really liked the party-talk and chit-chat. I figured that’s what I had an agent for. Nevertheless, I tried to be cordial and took some pictures with patrons and fans and ate a few mini-quiches and waited to see if Paula would show. And she did. I hadn’t really doubted it.

  
We looked at a black and white photo of a tattooed woman’s shoulder and neck in stark lighting. It was one of my favorites, showing beauty and strength and vulnerability all at once.

  
“What’s your husband’s name?” I asked as we strolled to the next photograph, an older, bare-chested biker astride his machine, sunglasses hiding his eyes, his snow white body hair creating an almost aura around him.

  
“Evan.”

  
“Quit joking around.”

  
Paula chuckled. “Evan Eduardo Hugo Flores, Jr. We’ve been married for three years. He goes by EJ, though.”

  
“Any babies?”

  
“No, we agreed to wait until I became an associate, which should happen before the end of this year.”

  
“Do you love him?”

  
“Of course. I wouldn’t have married him if I didn’t.”

  
That, despite the icicle in my gut, was good news.

  
“So what will you do about me, then?” I inquired after a moment of reflection.

  
Paula shrugged and strolled to the next photo that was of a man in a black leather eye mask cuddling a mewling kitten. She did not look at me as she spoke, only stared at the photograph. “You used to run into my arms when we found each other. I’ve never felt such love and joy. You were joy personified. It didn’t matter what we were doing or who we were with. You would beg me to run away with you, right then and there. And I’d always come with you. But these last few times, you treat me as though I’m just an obligation, like a business meeting, like you have no more feeling for me than a clerk at a supermarket that helped you pick out a ripe cantaloupe.” She met my curious eye now. “So I don’t suppose there’s much I can do about you. Or should. Should I?”

  
I took her hand roughly and led her to the back entrance that was small and mostly unused tonight except by the caterers and staff. I stood off to the side of the loading dock, once used by an office equipment supplier, now, in the new life of the old building, used for large installations. I lit a cigarette, my guilty habit. I took three drags and tried to calm my nerves.

  
“You leave me every time. You leave me with heartache and loneliness every time. _I’ve had lifetimes of your leaving and I’m sick of it!_ ” Such an impotent declaration for the huge desperation I felt in the core of my being.

  
“Gabrielle,” she said, stepping forward, looking so much like her old self, the woman I hadn’t seen for thousands of years, that it startled me.

  
“ _Don’t call me that!_ ” I snapped, stepping back. “That’s not my name!”

  
“It is our destiny,” she almost pleaded. “I thought you understood that by now. Do you think I like having to leave you? But we’ve got to cherish the time we do have together. You know that.”

  
“That’s easy for you to say,” I growled. I flicked my cigarette away and roughly wiped my wet cheek with the sleeve of my coat. “You’re not the one who gets left behind. I think you do like leaving, because you don’t want to be the one left behind. But this time, this time it’s going to be you. You will know the sorrow, the isolation, the anguish that I go through every time.” I stepped forward and pointed off in the vague direction of Miami. “Leave. Go home. Go be with your husband, have lots of babies and make lots of money. Be successful. Do whatever you want, but leave me alone.”

  
I saw sadness in her eyes and I was pleased.

  
“I know you don’t mean that. That’s not the way it works, Ga- Evan. You know that.”

  
“That’s the way it’s going to work this time!”

  
I glared at Paula while she looked back at me with wide and uncomprehending eyes that were welling with tears.

  
“You know that’s not the way it works,” she pleaded, trying to keep her voice even, “you know we have to be together.”

  
She was stepping closer; I held up my hand to stop her.

  
“Evan, please,” she whispered, her hand outstretched.

  
“ _Leave!_ ” I screeched, “I make the decisions this time!”

  
I turned my back on her and lit another cigarette. She stared at the back of my long gray coat, and then I heard her footsteps trail away from me. I smoked one more cigarette before I returned to my own art opening.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Thankfully, EJ was gone on his own business trip when I returned from the conference. Our very lovely home felt foreign and ugly to me and I couldn’t sleep. I wandered around in my robe. I stared at our wedding picture that was hanging in the hallway. I stared at my stupid smiling face and wanted to punch it. I had never punched anything or anyone in my life, but I knew that if I did, my fist would go through the wall.

I had always felt something was missing from my life, but I had just assumed that everyone felt that way. It wasn’t until I saw Gabrielle that I knew what it had been. Evan. I couldn’t call her Evan. Funny thing was I couldn’t remember my own name. She hadn’t said it, and it didn’t come to me until my flight home. And then I said my name along with hers, out loud. They sounded so lovely together, so right. The man in the middle seat thought I was crazy, and I wondered if I might be, a little bit.

As it turned out, it didn’t matter how lovely our names sounded together, or how crazy I felt. Nothing mattered because nothing would be assuaged because she refused me. For the third time, she refused me. It terrified me for more reasons than one.

The first time had come sometime in the mid-sixteenth century, somewhere in northern China. I lived in a village and helped support my family as a seamstress; she traveled from place to place with her father, selling wares and medicines.

When we were able to be alone, she implored me to let her be, to leave her alone, that she would leave the village and never return. She sobbed in my arms and begged me to allow her to leave. I knew why. In our previous iteration, I had been accused of witchcraft and was gruesomely tortured to death; Gabrielle was forced to watch, then spent the rest of her short life in a stone prison cell. She went mad and dreamed of me. She couldn’t lose me again, not like that, not ever. The memories were so vivid for her; the nightmares that awoke her now had a reason. I had always been the source of her pain, and I couldn’t allow it to go on. I agreed and I set her free. I watched her cart retreat from our village until I could no longer see it.

An earthquake hit the area late that night, killing nearly a million of my people, including me.

We were in Wales in our next incarnation. She was the daughter of a landowner; I was the son of a whore. I had traveled from Pontypool to Cardiff, looking for work and adventure. I spotted her in town. She spotted me and ran through the woods, the windy, nearly stormy weather working against her petticoats. I gave chase and easily caught up with her. She flung herself against me and kissed the life out of me. Taking shelter in a small stand of trees, she yanked down my pants and I yanked down her skivvies and I fucked her against a tree. And then she again pleaded with me to allow her to go on, not much time had passed since I’d been pressed to death as an accused witch, that she still had nightmares and simply couldn’t take it. I would die again, I would leave again, she might be forced to watch again and she worried for her very tentative hold onto her sanity. Again, not wanting to be the cause of her pain, I kissed her cheeks that were wet from her tears and said that I was on my way to Barry anyway, to look for work as a sailor.

I was barely out of town before the entire area flooded, violently and swiftly, washing us all away.

The next life was in Mexico. I was a soldier, she was a blade smith name Marco Antonio. I commissioned him to make me a wonderful sword in exchange for a room at my hacienda. We agreed that denying our destiny seemed to bring about great disasters to those around us. While it could have been coincidence and bad luck, we’d seen too many devastating results of poor decisions in our many lifetimes and decided not to chance it. Rafael and Marco Antonio were secret lovers until they died of old age, just days of one another, Rafael on a Sunday and Marco Antonio on the following Tuesday. That was one of my favorite memories, one of my favorite lives. And as I sat in my home in Miami and sipped Scotch on an expensive leather couch, wearing nothing but a silk robe, it occurred to me not for the first time that Gabrielle was always losing me. It was my destiny to leave, and it was hers to be left. It occurred to me not for the first time that Gabrielle was fighting against losing me. She’d chased me all over the known world to save me, to keep me, only to lose me time and again, and then finally and for good. After our deaths, we lived and relived lives, every single one of them resulting in my death first, sometimes only days before, sometimes years before, sometimes quietly, sometimes violently, but always first. Now she was no longer running to me to save me but rather running from me to save herself. I poured myself another Scotch and toasted her; good for her. I had never been any good for her anyway. I stared at the Greek amphora vase, backlit in my entertainment center in its own compartment. It was a collectible; a piece we’d bought as an investment, a piece of art that was insured for more money than my life was. It depicted Heracles battling the Amazons. I’d always hated it, but EJ loved it. Before I drank myself into unconsciousness, I bashed it against the wall.

“Hey, uh, baby, I’m coming home,” EJ sang on the voicemail. “Where are you, honey? They called me up here in Baltimore and said you didn’t go into work today. You’ve got me a little scared, baby, so just call me, OK? Love you.”

“Paula, you need to call me. What the hell happened to the vase? Paula, you need to call me as soon as you get this.”

“Paula, goddammit, call me. It’s Tuesday morning and no one’s heard from you since Sunday. I’m scared to death and I don’t know what to think. I’m calling the police.”

“Don’t call the police, EJ,” I muttered after dialing.

“Where are you? Paula, Jesus, are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I just… I needed to take some time.”

“Where are you, honey? I can come get you, OK?”

“No, no, I don’t want that. I’m in, I think I’m outside Tallahassee at some motel.” I glanced around at the decorations that hadn’t been updated in thirty years.

“Tallahassee? What the hell are you doing all the way up there?”

“I don’t know. I got in the Mercedes and just drove until I got tired.”

EJ sighed. I could see him running his hand through his thick black hair. “What’s the matter, baby? You can talk to me. You’ve always been able to tell me anything, you know that.”

“I know, and I love you for that. But this is my problem. Just give me some time, OK? I’ll be home on, what day did you say it was?”

“Tuesday, baby. You’re scaring me.”

I sat up. “Tuesday?”

“Yes, Tuesday. It’s Tuesday, honey. Why don't you let me come to you? I’ll fly up there and we’ll drive home together. It’ll be like a roadtrip. We’ll make it fun.”

It was Tuesday! Nearly three entire days since I’d left Gabrielle at her art opening. Three days!

“I’ll be home tomorrow night, EJ. And then we have to talk.”


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I sat intently, staring at the screen, very delicately editing an image I’d taken two weeks before of nesting birds in a gap of a highway overpass. Someone told me they were white-winged doves. I wasn’t sure that I liked it, but it was capturing my attention, so I continued to create focus and shadow and nuance.

My cell phone rang; it was my agent Colleen.

“Want to tell me why a lawyer from Miami is trying to get a hold of you?”

I groaned and closed my eyes. “Paula Alvarado?”

“You know her?”

“She’s an acquaintance. Give her my phone number.”

“I can forward her right now.”

“I don’t want you listening. Give her my number.”

Two minutes later, a 305 phone number made my phone ring.

“Nothing happened, Gabrielle!” She sounded excited and happy.

“I asked you not to call me that.”

“Nothing happened! No disasters, we’re both still alive and healthy! You are alive and healthy, aren’t you?”

“As far as I can tell.” I rubbed my temple. “Except for this headache that I’m sure must be a tumor.”

“That means that you haven’t completely given up on us.”

I put Paula on speaker and leaned back in my chair. I was silent for a long time.

“Ga-Evan?”

“I’m here.”

“Please.”

I could feel a bit of a temper welling up in me. “It is bad enough I know you exist now, Paula! It’s bad enough that your mere existence has sent mine into a complete tailspin!” I yelled into the phone. “Just give me some peace until I absolutely have to give it up.”

“You really make a girl feel wanted.” She had the nerve to sound hurt.

“I don’t want you!” I snapped.

“I’m going to leave my husband, Evan.”

“Paula, no. Don’t do that.” My poor head throbbed and I bend over and buried my face in my hands.

“You are my soul mate. How can I possibly be with anyone else?”

“You’ll break his heart.”

“You’re breaking mine.”

“And you’ve broken mine thousands of times.”

There was silence between us for many minutes.

“I’m going to hang up now,” I muttered.

“I’ll come to you,” she said, her voice hollow now.

“Please don’t.”

“I have to, Gabrielle.”

I hung up the phone and blocked her number.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

EJ was understandably baffled at my request for a divorce. My heart ached for him; he was a good man and hadn’t asked for this. Then again, neither had I. I asked him for nothing but my bank account, clothes and belongings; he could have everything else: my beloved Mercedes, the house I now hated and all the furnishings, the timeshare in the Keys, the Marlins’ season tickets. He begged me to go to counseling; he bribed me to stay with trips to the Caribbean and Europe. He cried and had a temper tantrum. He tried to be logical- what about my job? My friends? I’d already resigned from my job and my true friends would understand that I had real reasons for doing what I was doing. 

When the Uber arrived, I handed him the papers I’d had a friend draw up. He took them from me numbly. I kissed him on the top of his head and grabbed my bags. I sat stoically in the backseat of the Toyota Prius as I was driven to the airport. EJ was just more of a mounting pile of evidence that I was more than adept at breaking peoples’ hearts.

My flight was spent in study of Evan Crabtree. There was no major biography about Evan Crabtree as she was young and well-known only in certain circles. I had to piece together my information from her online site which was really just a slick gallery of some of her work, and three articles (one rather long, and two shorter ones.)

Evan Crabtree was born in London, England to a British publishing executive and an American audiologist. She lived in London for only seven months before her father was relocated to Vancouver. She had no siblings and showed early signs of artistic prowess, first winning competitions with pottery but eventually turning to photography and enrolling in Emily Carr University and, of course, excelling. 

There was one story that I found, though, one story that wasn’t included in any of the major articles on her. I had done a Google search of her name and found an old story in the newspaper from her university. A student, a young man, had climbed to the top of an installation, a massive iron and aluminum thing, and had decided he was going to jump. Against the orders of police, another student climbed up to join the young man and sat with him for two hours, talking softly to him, until she could take his hand and lead him down the ladder of the fire truck, saving his life. She didn’t know him; she’d never seen him before. He was in his first year, she her third. He was in design, she was in fine arts. He was from Montreal, she was from Vancouver. They had no friends in common. Yet she saved his life.

That was my Gabrielle. That was the heart of the woman I loved beyond reason, beyond sanity, across time and through time. She was my heart and she was my light and I wouldn’t let her go. Sometime, somehow, our journey would end and we would enter the Elysian Fields together. Of that I was sure. I now had to convince her of it.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I couldn’t be in the house and I couldn’t be in the studio, so I packed my equipment in my backpack, popped on my helmet over my newly re-browned hair, straddled my dad’s ‘86 Harley Sportster and went prowling for shots. I started in Stanley Park but only rode instead of stopping, trying to clear my mind and not think about anything. It was beautiful and crisp and I took in the scenery and the scents and felt, for the first time in a few days, a little more like myself. 

Whoever that was.

I decided to go to one of my favorite spots- Granville Island- and spent the rest of the afternoon clicking away at my alma mater, trying to remember the young woman who just wanted to laugh and make beautiful and thought provoking art. Eventually, as the sun began to dip, I wandered over to the market to see what sounded good to bring home for dinner and to see if there were any last pictures to take. 

I took some shots of the architecture and signs overhead, some of the flowers for sale, a couple little kids eating ice cream that made me smile. I bought some salmon and new potatoes for dinner, then a coffee to sip while I sat and people watched. And then I gasped as though I’d bumped my elbow or stubbed my toe.

She was there, I could feel her. I pulled the hood of my jacket over my head and scanned the crowd. At first, I saw no one. There were tourists and locals enjoying their treats, taking pictures, eating, laughing. There were little kids running around, playing tag around the pillars. Maybe I was just being paranoid, I thought. I didn’t see her.

And then I did. She emerged from the market. She had on faded jeans, white sneakers, a white t-shirt and a grey blazer with a scarf stylishly placed around her neck. Her hair was up in a messy bun and she wore aviator sunglasses and carried a crossbody bag. She looked straight out of a J.Crew catalog. I wasn’t sure that was a good thing, but it looked good on her.

For a split second, I wanted to run to her. I had these images flashing in my mind of showing her around Vancouver, driving with her on the back of the Harley, taking her to my old school and showing her my home, showing her my bed. For a split second, I wanted to do that, but then I saw her scanning the crowd and realized she was looking for me. Seeking me. Searching for me. Stalking me. My soul mate, my stalker. 

How long would it take? A day? A week? A year? A decade? Would she fall ill? Get in a horrific car accident? Get shot trying to stop a robbery? Would she get killed trying to save me from an attacker? We’d had so few lifetimes, full lifetimes, in which we’d lived into old age; the majority of our lives left me alone and battered and bruised and, often, barely hanging on to my sanity. I was no warrior anymore, nor had I been for many lives; I was just a normal person trying to survive under the weight of tremendous and continual loss.

I loved her, but love just wasn’t enough.

I skulked away like a burglar, taking cover behind as much as I could until I reached my bike and was able to get my helmet on and the motor started. I rode away, unsure of what to do next.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

I’d always heard Vancouver was lovely, and it didn’t disappoint. The weather was a little chilly for a Florida native, but changes in weather never really bothered me. 

I’d taken a room at the Sheraton and rented a car. The first thing I did was hit a local gallery that showed Evan’s work. Just as they should, they gave me no information about where I could find her, only that they would pass on the message. Next I drove out to her college and inquired at the alumni association; they, too, declined to give me any information. They were nice enough to tell me to visit the Public Market not too far away. 

She was there, I knew she was. I could feel her. I hunted through the aisles looking for her, but saw no flashes of fuchsia hair. I wished I’d been the person I once was; that version of me would have found her immediately. Paula the lawyer was near-sighted and, even though I knew in my heart and felt it in my bones that she was so close, I didn’t see her.

I dined on passable tenderloin tips and a decent red at the hotel restaurant, then spent an hour in the Jacuzzi tub in my room, trying to read a true crime novel and not think about Gabrielle. It didn’t work.

Under normal circumstances, if someone told me they didn’t want me, I would, of course, leave them alone. But this wasn’t a normal circumstance- this was Gabrielle, this was the woman with whom my soul was undeniably linked forevermore. I couldn’t just walk away. Not only did I know that living without her would destroy me, I didn’t know what not coming together would do.

I knew she hadn’t completely given up on me because there had been no hurricanes, earthquakes or swarms of locust invading our general area. This was the glimmer of hope I clung to.

The reason that I always died first, I’d decided, was because I would implode if she died first. Back in our first incarnation, no matter what I promised her to the opposite, I knew I’d take it out on the world if I lost her. Not only would I have taken it out on the world, I would have been successful. As the world got bigger and my sphere of influence got smaller, I wouldn’t have been able to take my torment out on the entire world but my little corner of it would surely be devastated in some way. I simply could not handle losing her. She, on the other hand, had always been stronger than I, and the world never suffered; in fact, several times, the world prospered because she survived me. 

This time, if she continued to deny me, I wouldn’t take it out on the world, of course, but I wasn’t sure what I would do. I tried not to think about it. 

The bottom line was that my Gabrielle suffered and I was the cause. We’d talked about it many times over the thousands of years. She amazed me that she could still find the positive side of things, the sunny side, the side that allowed us to be together. In return, I would do my best to spoil her and care for her. Whatever Gabrielle wanted, Gabrielle got. The last few times, however, she was less willing to be with me and more afraid of the future. I couldn’t say that I blamed her; she was only human, after all. And despite this, despite all my knowledge and compassion for her, I couldn’t let her go, I couldn’t leave her be and go on without her. I was determined that we would figure it out together, whatever it may be. That was my focus and I would deal with the rest later.

I did an image search on Evan Crabtree. On top of the images I’d already found, I found out that there were several male teenagers with the same name all around the world, many of which seemed to play football. About midway down the second page, there was a tiny little image of two women, arms around each other’s necks. It came from a page of a pub in Vancouver called Far Horizons, and it was from their gallery page. The caption read “Bartender extraordinaire Mich and Ev Crabtree, Boxing Day, 2014.” It was most certainly Evan, sans fuchsia hair. I began to scroll through the pictures from Far Horizons and it appeared as though that Evan was a regular patron. In one picture, she was even pointing to a black and white photograph of a lighthouse that was hanging on the brick wall; I assumed it was one of hers. I performed one more quick search.

“Hmm, half-priced imports tonight,” I mused to myself. “I could go for a beer.”


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

“What’s the matter, lovey?” Mich asked, handing me a half-priced bottle of Danish pilsner. “And what happened to your hair?”

I ran my hand through it. “Got tired of it.”

“You OK?” Michelle and I had been friends for many years. Aside from my mother, she knew me better than anyone. Denying anything was wrong would simply cause her to probe harder.

“Yeah, I’m OK. Just…”

“What?” Her pretty blue eyes peered at me inquisitively.

“Mich, do you believe in soul mates?”

“Hell no. There’s too many pretty boys and girls with whom to play.” She grinned devilishly. “Why, do you?”

“Yeah. Which just makes it harder.”

“Makes what harder, Ev?”

Thankfully, before I could answer, she had to move to the other side of the bar to serve drinks.

Paula would not give up, of that I was sure. I knew her so well that I was sure I was in the midst of a hot pursuit. She would force me to either deal with her or continue running. She taught me virtually everything I knew; I could escape her, but because we had the same skills, she would eventually find me. Eventually was the word I hung all my hopes on. Maybe I could have some sort of happiness on which I would be able to look back before my life turned once again to despair.

“My friend,” Mich said, returning to me. She had a very concerned look on her face, “tell me what’s wrong.”

Before I could even answer, before I could even consider if I wanted to answer, I felt her. And then I saw her in the mirror. She was standing behind me; the glass shelf holding bottles of liqueur distorted her face making it clear that it wasn’t Paula’s face, it was _her_.

She straddled the barstool next to me and flashed a smile at Mich. “Can I have one of what she’s drinking?”

Mich looked from her to me and back and forth, picking up on my body language that I knew this woman and wasn’t entirely happy about seeing her. She nodded and moved to the cooler that held the bottles.

“How are you?” Paula asked me. I was staring hard at the label on my bottle.

“I’m fine.”

“You changed your hair.”

“Yep.”

Mich returned with Paula’s bottle. “Start a tab, hon?”

Paula pulled out her Visa card and handed it to Mich. Mich took it and was just about to walk away but played a hunch and leaned back against the bar. She stared intently at Paula. She nodded towards me.

“Are you the reason my friend looks so pissed off?”

“Probably.”

“Maybe you should leave then.”

“Listen,  you—“

I’d heard that tone a thousand times before, and that was the last thing I wanted. I reached out and put my hand on Mich’s arm. I had to stop a confrontation before Mich ended up flying through a window; she thought she was tough and had a mouth on her, but she couldn’t handle what Paula could serve up if pushed.

“Mich, it’s OK, she’s OK.” Mich studied me. I nodded, silently confirming what I’d said. Mich shot Paula a look, then turned to the register to start Paula’s tab.

I sat next to Paula for the length of my beer, and we didn’t speak. I didn’t look at her and I didn’t sneak peeks at her in the mirror. I knew she was watching me out of the corner of her eye. It was early yet so the bar wasn’t that noisy, but the loud hockey game on the television helped detour any potential small talk.

“Can we please go somewhere and talk?” she asked finally.

“I don’t want to talk.”

“Gabrielle, you have to at least talk to me.”

For the first time, I turned and looked at her. I didn’t she her, I saw Paula. “ _My name is Evan!_ ” I hissed. “ _Stop fucking calling me that!_ ”

Paula’s eyebrows shot up in surprise that I would talk to her like that. In all our years, I had rarely been that blunt and angry, and the shock and then hurt registered in her face. It was her turn to study the label on her beer bottle.

“Listen,” I finally sighed after I’d gathered myself a little, “let me go to the bathroom, then we can go get a coffee or something.”

Paula looked at me, her expression contrite, a little timid, a little hopeful. “OK. Thank you.”

I tossed a few dollars on the bar for Mich, who’d been watching me like a hawk, and headed to the back of the bar towards the ladies room. The bright red exit sign over the back door beckoned me and I heeded its call.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8  
It was a rookie mistake which took me about fifteen minutes to realize I’d made. I paid the smirking bartender, who, by the looks of her expression, knew exactly what Gabrielle had done. A quick scan of the restrooms and the pool room confirmed what I already knew- she was gone.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Mom puttered around her kitchen, straightening up and offering me food. I looked like her- short, compact body, round-ish face, square shoulders, muscular even when we weren’t trying.

She questioned me about showing up at her house unannounced, astride the Harley with my travel backpack packed. I’d sort of lied when I told her I’d just needed some time off, some time away. That seemed to satisfy her and she commented on how she was happy my hair was back to normal and my make-up was more natural.

“Mom, let me take you out to dinner,” I said. Her flitting about was making me anxious.

She was my mother; I was of her body and blood. Even though my father had passed, I was of his blood, too. But it was my mother, the one I looked so much like, the one they called my twin when I was a teenager and younger woman. She was the one who taught me how to appreciate Audrey Hepburn and how to roast a chicken and change a tire. She came to every art show and sports competition from the time I was eight until I was 23 and bought a used kiln for me when I was 11 so I could fire my work in the shed whenever I wanted and eventually converted the pantry into a darkroom for me. Dr. Abigail McCloud Crabtree was my mother, and yet I did not belong to her.

“Oh, honey, I’ve got food here,” Mom pooh-poohed me. 

“I know, but I want to treat you. We can go to Tulio; you love Tulio. You can have their duck.”

She smiled her most adorable smile and I knew I was going to treat my mother to a lovely dinner six blocks off the Seattle waterfront. 

We started with mussels and pinot grigio. Mom was grinning and laughing about telling me about a fellow she was casually dating and a 5k she’d run and the renters in the house outside of Vancouver that I was supposed to check on once in awhile but didn’t. 

“Mom,” I interrupted her, “do you believe in soul mates?”

Her eyes widened behind her stylish glasses, just as the waiter delivered her agnolotti. 

“That’s an interesting question. This looks lovely, I’ll never be able to eat my duck. What did you order?”

“Risotto.”

“So,” Mom said, taking a forkful of pasta, “are you asking me this because you’ve met someone?”

“Ratherish.”

Mom raised an eyebrow. “That’s an interesting answer to my question.”

“And you’ve not answered mine,” I replied, topping off our wine glasses.

“Soul mates,” she mused.

“Were you and Dad soul mates?”

She smiled. “I loved your father very much. But I don’t know if we were meant to be. Maybe. Maybe some people are, but your father and I got along well and worked hard at our relationship. Why do you think the person you met ratherishly is your soul mate?”

I know she is.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I do know that I don’t want to deal with it.”

“Why not?”

I finished a glass of wine. “I want to work, I want to travel, I want to do what I want,” I lied inadequately.

“I worked, I traveled, and I did whatever I wanted and I was married for 25 years.”

I felt a spasm in my thorax as though I might cry. “Do you miss him, Mom?”

A look of sadness crossed her face. “Every day. But I wouldn’t have missed being with him for the world.”

I toyed around with the rice on my plate and tried to tighten my slippery grasp on my composure. I missed my father every day. I missed her every day, too. 

“Tell me about this person you met, Evangeline. How long have you known her?”

Mom sounded so conversational, so light and her tone was so opposite of the weight and darkness I felt inside.

“I’ve known her forever,” I muttered, not looking up.

“Is it Michelle the bartender?”

Mom’s now worried tone actually made me smile for the first time in days. “No, Mom, it’s not Michelle.”

“Not that Michelle isn’t a nice girl, but, well, it’s just that you’ve never mentioned anyone. To my knowledge, Evangeline, you’ve never had a serious relationship. Am I wrong?” She looked at me as though she was trying to read my mind, or my heart.

“No, Mom, you’re not wrong. I’m pretty horrible at relationships.”

“Well, is she an abuser? An alcoholic? A drug user? A drug dealer?”

“No, Mom, no. Nothing like that. She is a lawyer, though.” I chuckled a little at my own joke.

She thoughtfully chewed her pasta for a moment. “It seems to me that if you’ve found someone worthy that you even think is your soul mate, you owe it to yourself to at least try.”

“Yeah, but, a huge part of me wants to run away. What’s that say?” I emptied the bottle of wine into our glasses.

“It says that you’re human, sweetie. It’s a scary thing to give your heart to someone.”

We silently worked on our meals for awhile, then chatted about Mom’s work and my aunts and uncles. The third course had come; Mom had the duck, I had the pork shank. Later, we shared a piece of a chocolate cake with coffees.

“So, my love, what are you going to do about this soul mate situation?”

I sat back in my chair and sighed. “I don’t know. Is the Cherokee in running order?”

“Yes, I just had your cousin Jeremy do an oil change and tire rotation. Why?”

“Do you think I could borrow it for awhile? Maybe I’ll drive down to San Francisco and see Shelia.”

“That sounds like a fabulous idea. Will you stay and visit with me for a day or two, though?”

I patted and held my mother’s hand and assured her I would. That night, after she’d gone to bed, I sat on her screened in patio with a glass of my father’s Scotch and a couple of cigarettes and considered my options and considered Paula. The more I thought, the more running to San Francisco sounded like a fabulous idea.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

It had been a rookie mistake, letting Gabrielle out of my sight. I cursed myself in the parking lot and again back in my hotel. The next two days I cased the city and all the art galleries and everywhere I thought she might like to go, but there was no sign of her. I didn’t feel her around at all. She was gone. 

The third night, I returned to Far Horizons. It wasn’t very busy, just a few people at the bar, some at a few high top tables and a couple of guys playing pool in the back room. The music was on but not very loudly. There was a red-headed young man behind the bar. I ordered the same kind of beer I’d had the other night.

“Hey, can I ask you a question?” I asked the red-head.

“Sure.”

“There was a bartender here the other night, a woman, I think her name was Mich?”

“Michelle, yeah. What about her?”

“I was hoping she was going to be here, I had something I wanted to talk to her about.”

“I think she’s upstairs with the manager. Hey, Scottie, Mich here?”

A young kid restocking the coolers replied that she was. 

“She’s here,” the red-head said with finality and a smile, as though he’d solved my problem.

“Do you think you could ask her to come down so I could talk to her?” I had an almost irresistible urge to slam his head against the bar.

“Hey, Scottie, tell Mich there’s someone here for her.”

I sipped on my beer and watched a sports talk show on the overhead TV. After about ten minutes, I began to get anxious. Finally, Mich emerged from a side door and came behind the bar.

“Who needed me?” she asked the red-head.

“I did,” I responded for him, hoping to avert any further delays. 

She looked at me and seemed to recognize me judging by the smirk that appeared on her face. She moved over towards me and began to pour herself a drink.

“What can I do for you, Treetop? You’re Ev’s friend, yeah?”

“Paula, yes, hi. I was hoping you knew where she was, I really need to talk to her.”

She leaned sideways on the bar and sipped her drink, keeping her eyes on me. “I’d say by the way she ditched you the other night that she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“You’re probably right, but I still need to talk to her. I’d really appreciate it if you’d help me out.”

“Look, Ev is one of my oldest friends. You really don’t think I’d actually help you, do you?”

We stared at each other for a moment, then I drained my beer. In another life, I knew I would have grabbed her by the front of her Rolling Stones t-shirt and threatened her and forced her to tell me where Gabrielle was. This was not that life. I’d have to try another tactic. 

“No, I don’t suppose you would.” I dropped my eyes. “If you talk to her, I’d really appreciate it if you’d tell her I was asking for her.”

Mich shrugged noncommittally. 

“Could I have another?” I asked with a heavy sigh, trying to sound as down-trodden as I could.

Mich retrieved another beer and placed it in front of me. I knew she was watching me so I kept my eyes down and waited her out.

“What do you want from her, anyway?”

Bingo.

“Nothing, I don’t want anything from her. I want to apologize to her, that’s all. I was an asshole. She deserves an apology.”

“She’s one of the best people I know,” Mich confirmed, turning her body to face me.

“She is, she’s amazing, and I just…” I shook my head and put on a despairing expression.

Mich cocked her head. “What’d you do?”

I met her eye. “I left her. I shouldn’t have, but I did. It was a long time ago. I need her to know how sorry I am.”

“What, are you going through some twelve step program or something?”

I nodded solemnly. “Something like that. Honestly, I don’t want anything from her, you have to believe me, I just want her to hear me out.”

She considered me for a moment before coming to a decision. “Actually, I don’t know where she is, but I do know she’s out of town for awhile. I can tell her you were looking for her, though.”

I forced a small smile. “Thanks, Mich. I appreciate that. I can see why she values your friendship so much.” 

Mich nodded and sipped her drink. It looked like she was thinking about something. I waited her out a little longer, trying to appear at least partially interested in the program on TV while keeping a dejected expression on my face.

“You’re not that chick she met in Seattle, are you?” she finally asked. “Because if you are, I’ll have to kick your ass.”

I scrunched my eyebrows. “No, that’s not me. We met in Greece. What happened in Seattle?”

Mich waved her hand dismissively. “She met some skank while she was staying with her mother. Really messed her up for awhile. She’s never mentioned a girl from Greece. Maybe you’re making too much of this.”

I nodded. “Maybe. It was a long time ago, I’m just now getting my life together. This is just something I have to do. But, I really do appreciate your help, Mich. You’re a good friend to Evan.”

We said our goodbyes and I headed back to my hotel to pack and check out.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

I stopped in Florence, Oregon to get a hotel room for the night and take some pictures of the river ways, the beach and the bridge. It was the only time I wasn’t mulling over my situation in my mind. 

She had pushed me away and pulled me back more times than I could count. It was always about her. She had told me it was about me, telling me I was her light, her reason, but it wasn’t about me, it was always about her. It was always about redeeming her, fighting for the greater good from her point of view, her son, her daughter, her gods. She didn’t believe in my gods, she didn’t give credit to the bond I had with my daughter, she didn’t believe in my skills, and she only fully trusted me just before I was forced (not for the first time, and, as it turns out, it wasn’t the last time, either) to watch her die and leave me. And now I was stuck in this perpetual cycle of coming back together only to watch her leave me again and again and again. 

When I was a kid, I was watching a movie with my mother. We were both sick with the flu and Dad was at work. Mom had put on an Audrey Hepburn film and we cuddled up on our respective ends of the sofa with our blankets and pillows and nearby cups of tea. I don’t remember much about the movie, but there was one line that had stuck with me all my life. I thought maybe it was just good writing, but I came to find out it was a line that might as well have been tattooed on my skin:

“You don’t give me everything I want; you give me everything you want to give me.”

Early on, coming together again was a dream come true. I had felt that our love was so true, so pure that there was no other outlet for it except to play out lifetime after lifetime. Our love was as immortal as the gods. I did rush to her, that was true; I did run to her, that was true. We could barely keep our hands off of each other; it was a cycle of rediscovering one another. After days or weeks of sex, we would concoct a plan that would allow us to be together and then execute it, like clockwork, like always. 

And then at some point she would leave, die, be killed, take ill, get executed, or disappear under mysterious circumstances, leaving me alone again. And again and again and again.

A soul could only take so much of that. In comparison to the number of lifetimes that we simply lived out into old age, the number of lifetimes in which she left me was overwhelming. I tried to remember and hang on to Rafael and Marco Antonio, to Ella and Matilda, to Sashna and Sahar, to Pasha and Yulia. There may have been others, but it didn’t matter much, they were outweighed and overshadowed by the loss of her I witnessed, felt, and lived through.

I was in no hurry to do that again.

I was running on the jetty in the twilight as I was mulling this about, yet again. This time, though, this time it overwhelmed me. I sprinted until I thought my lungs would burst then I dropped to my knees and howled at the rising moon like an animal. How could I feel as though the hole in my life was filled while at the same time feel so sad and lost? I watched the water and cried, and wondered if I should simply walk myself out there and end it. She would find out soon enough that I was dead and then she would have to live without me for a change.

I knew in my heart that it wouldn’t work, and, the truth was, I didn’t want to die. I liked this life, I liked this body, I lived for my work and I loved my mom more than I could explain. She didn’t fit in- we didn’t fit in to this life, and she would eventually leave me damaged, disorientated, used up and alone.

I had fought to be with her so many times, and now I was running away from her- literally. What was different about this time? Why was I running, truly running, this time? I’d tried to end us before. This time felt different. Somehow I felt more dedicated to my decision, but that dedication left me feeling a bigger void than I’d ever felt before.

I ran back to my room, called my mother, cleaned up and went to a nearby bar and grill for clam chowder and a couple of beers, then went back to my nice room without a view and watched TV until I fell asleep. I tried not to think about her, but I dreamed about her and woke up drenched in sweat and tears.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Dr. Crabtree was much easier to find than her daughter. She worked for Becker-Cathay Audiology Clinic, and her smiling face was pictured on the clinic website, and she was the spitting image of her daughter, given twenty years. I waited around in the parking lot like a detective until finally I saw her get into her white Lexus at the end of the day. 

Her home was a lovely lakefront property, with an arbor covered in vines at the front of a walk, a simple but well-landscaped small front yard and a red door. It was a home that I pictured Gabrielle choosing. I parked down the street and watched for signs of her. I had water and snacks and was prepared to wait it out.

It was only twenty minutes before I realized how utterly creepy I was being and drove away.

Do you live in the time you’re in or the time you’re from? There were no outlaw gods to be hunted down or villainous warlords to be brought to justice; there were only lives to be led. How could something so incredibly simple be so hugely difficult? I wanted to live my life with her; Gabrielle had different feelings. I had used in the past what was most probably a couple of coincidences to convince her that we were meant to be, for the greater good. The greater good had done very little for my Gabrielle in all her lifetimes, no matter how much she believed in it. It had done much more for me. Maybe it was because she was the greater and she was the good and she hadn’t needed me but I had needed her so very much and did any of that matter in the 21st century?

I had chased the poor woman out of her country, out of her home, from Vancouver to Seattle to who knew where she had gone from there. Enough was enough. She was going to live out her life without me, and she seemed determined to do it. I was going to live out my life without her and I was going to be wholly busted. She had always been my light, and I had always been her darkness. What had I brought to her? What gift had I ever given her?

The best gift I could ever give to her would be to leave her alone.

I booked a room at a funky little hotel near the university and took up residence on a barstool at the hotel bar and dined on tomato-fennel soup and New York strip steak and martinis. I poured myself into bed around 11, but I couldn’t sleep. I lay there and wanted to howl, but I couldn’t even cry; tears just silently leaked from my open eyes and soaked my pillow.

It was the end of our story, and I didn’t know if my own story could stand on its own. I didn’t know if it could, but I owed it to myself (and her) to try. 

So I called Lucky.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

She was beautiful. She had always been. Time had always been her enemy, but she had also been patient. Always patient. It took its toll on her, making her countenance generally grumpy, sometimes downright mean, but she knew how patient she actually was. She was well aware of the amount of self-control she actually had, even if others weren’t.

“Tea, ma’am,” said Brenda, her maid, coming into the office with a well-appointed tray.

“Thank you,” she muttered, saving the document on her laptop.

“Greyson will take you to gala at six,” Brenda said, busying herself with pouring the tea for her mistress.

She grunted her acknowledgment of the statement.

“I’ll help you dress when you’re ready. Paolo will be here at 4:30 to do your hair.”

“Mm-hmm,” she responded. She was not looking forward to the gala.

“Come have your tea.”

“Yes, yes.”

As she stood to move to the settee, something happened, something shifted in the universe, something shifted in such a way that it knocked her nearly off her four inch heels. Her knees buckled and she gasped and grasped at her desk to maintain her balance, shoving her tablet and some pens to the hardwood floor, clattering loudly.

“Lady Martine!” Brenda cried, rushing to her mistress’ side. “Oh, my goodness, what happened? Are you all right?”

Brenda supported Martine and helped her back into her chair. Martine grasped at her hand.

“Something’s happened,” she muttered, short of breath. “Something’s happened.”

“We should take you to hospital, ma’am. Let me ring for the—“

“No, no, Brenda, I’m fine.” Shakily she tried to still Brenda’s hands from dialing her cell phone. “I’m fine. Call Fergus.”

Brenda looked quizzically at her mistress. “The Viscount?”

The realization was hitting Martine, and instead of dizzy, she began to feel just a touch giddy, albeit still a bit light-headed. “Call my brother, Brenda, please.”

“Ma’am, maybe a doctor—"

“No! Call my brother. Call Fergus.”

“Ma’am,” Brenda said, a concerned look on her face. She most certainly did not want to call the Viscount.

“Something’s happened, Brenda,” Martine said, squeezing Brenda’s hand, a smile beginning on her face, “I think something’s finally happening.”


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

When I was a little girl, before my parents decided that I needed to go to schools that would foster my talents, I attended public school. And there was another little girl named Marjorie Richelieu in my class. She was bigger than me and she did not like me. I never knew why; maybe I was a better student or a better artist. In any case, I’d done something that she had decided was the proverbial last straw and she promised to kick my butt after school at the playground. I was terrified; I had to walk through the playground to get home. 

Mustering all my courage, I approached the playground after school that day and to my delight I saw no one there. It was all words, all bluster, and I breathed a sigh of relief and I began my walk home. Just as I was passing the swing sets, I heard them behind me. It was Marjorie and her cronies and they were coming after me. 

One thing I’d always had going for me was my speed. I had always been fast, I could always run, and so I did. I tore through the picnic areas and the grassy areas and the basketball courts and the bocce courts. They were right behind me, I could hear them. My adrenaline was on high and my little backpack was smacking me in the back of the head with every step. I snaked through the trees and the parked cars and behind the supermarket. I ran into our neighborhood and leaped over Mrs. Carter’s flower garden. My blood was pumping in my ears and my throat and chest was burning as though I’d swallowed fire. I still had a block and a half to go and I wasn’t sure that I would make it on my weakening legs. 

I wasn’t sure that I had to. Something told me to look back. I looked back and there was no one there. Somewhere along the way, the bullies had figured that I was too small a fish for them to bother with and they had stopped chasing me. I was so relieved, I felt so relieved. My side was screaming but I was so relieved, and I went home and had my after school snack with my mother as if nothing had ever happened.

It was something like that while I was driving from Florence to San Francisco. At one point, I looked down and I had the Cherokee flying down the I-5 at 120 mph. I was fleeing and my heart was pounding and I was on high alert. I was tired, so very tired, and I just wanted to stop.

But as I got into San Francisco, something came over me. I realized that I wasn’t being chased anymore; Paula had stopped. She was no longer seeking me. I couldn’t explain how I knew it, but I just knew it. As I pulled into the driveway of my friend Shelia’s swanky townhouse in a sparkly new neighborhood in the Bay Area, I knew it was over. 

It was over.

The next thing I had to deal with was that I didn’t know just how to feel about it.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Lucky El Dorado had been born John Alvarado. He was a former drag queen and current real estate mogul with homes all around the country. He was also my cousin and my only living relative in the States. He had been the man to walk me down the aisle; he’d also been the one to alter my prom dress, take me to the hospital when I got the chicken pox, held me in his arms when I didn’t get valedictorian in high school, help me move into the dorms, send me to Cabo on spring break and sew curtains for my first apartment. He had been my only touchstone, someone I held in higher regard than EJ, than anyone. He was older than me, the parental figure I needed after my parents passed when I was a young girl. As I expected, once I called, he opened his and his husband Kenneth’s house to me.

His face was a mask of concern as he greeted me.

“It’s over,” I said, feeling empty and lost and raw to the core. 

Lucky gathered me up in his arms, his Armani cologne light but distinct and comforting. “I know, _mija_ , EJ called me a couple of weeks ago. I’ve just been waiting for you to come home.”

All my lives, there was a sense of loss until I found her. And in this life, there was a truth of loss after I’d found her, and it was all the worse. I knew my soul was gutted and there would be nowhere for me to go, spiritually or otherwise. I wondered what was going to happen in my next life; if there was going to be a reincarnation or not, if I would have the sense of loneliness and loss I’d experienced in most of my lives until I meet Gabrielle. I felt guilty for not loving her enough. In our first go round, if I’d just settled down with her, if we’d just stopped moving and tried to have a life, maybe things would have been different. It didn’t happen; it didn’t matter. A friendship as immortal as the gods, she once intoned. Where were the gods now? Where were we? Once I thought it was a blessing that we always came back together, but, perhaps, in reality, it was a curse. It now felt heavy and black and dank like a curse.  Once, a long time ago, I had felt unworthy, unlovable, and unredeemable. I had planned to do something about it, but Gabrielle had saved me. This time, however, there would be no Gabrielle to save me. But whatever Gabrielle wanted, Gabrielle got, and what she wanted was for me to disappear from her life. So I did.

***

Lucky sat impassively listening to my (slightly altered) story: that I had left EJ for someone else with whom it didn’t work out. Kenneth had made a pitcher of sangria and a cheese and fruit plate that were in front of us. Lucky thoughtfully munched on an apple slice, glanced at Kenneth who sat beside him, then recrossed one leg over the other.

“OK,” he said, “now tell me the real story.”

I finished the last swallow in my glass and reached for the pitcher. “Lucky—“

“Don’t bullshit me,” he scolded, the lines in his handsome face becoming more defined with the stern expression he was wearing. “I know you better than you know yourself. Tell me the real story.”

I shook my head. “You won’t believe it.”

“I’ll believe it better than that fairy tale you just told me.” He held up a finger and emphasized his points with it. “That is not you. You have a better reason to leave EJ, whom I know you loved, and your job, that I know you loved, than just some piece of ass. So you tell papi the truth, or I’m sending you back to Florida to clean up your mess.”

I was pretty sure he was going to have me committed, but I began the story anyway. “Have you ever heard of the photographer Evan Crabtree?”

Kenneth’s cute and chubby face brightened. “Yes! I have one of her pieces in my study. You’ve seen it, the Vancouver marina, over my desk.”

“She’s my soul mate.”

Lucky blinked at me, his eyes on me like lasers. He sipped his sangria, eyeing me over the rim of the glass. “A woman? Interesting. Explain.”

So I did. It took two pitchers of sangria, a grilled steak and potatoes dinner, and coffee and cake for dessert before I finished. I told them about being a warlord, about learning how to do feats of impossibility, about gods and monsters, about crucifixions. I told them about lovers and children, and I told them about Gabrielle, who saved me and how we worked together for the greater good of humanity. I told them about falling in love with her and understanding how we were undeniably linked, and how I left her. I told them about how we returned to one another, lifetime after lifetime, and how I left her those times, too. To their credit, they listened to my story like it was believable. It was even hard for me to believe. I would never have believed it had Gabrielle and I not seen each other in that hotel bar.

“Let me ask you something,” Kenneth said as I came to the end of my story, his square chin resting in his hand, trying to look supportive, “do you think you’re immortal?”

“Immortal? No. If you picked up a gun and shot me, I would die. I’ll just come back, most probably.”

“Do we all come back?” Lucky asked.

I squinted at him. “Wait a minute, do you actually believe me?”

He shrugged a little. “There’s one way to find out,” he said. “Do something amazing.”

“Pardon?” 

“Do something amazing. You said you were this all powerful, superhero-ish, crazy talented ninja warrior that could do all sorts of tricks and flips and acrobatics. So do something. Prove it, right now, that you are who you say you are.”

I had not been the most athletically gifted girl and Lucky knew that, made clear by his patronizing tone. I’d had two left feet as a kid and I spent my one high school season on the basketball team seated firmly on the bench, having been recruited only for my height. He also knew that, if I couldn’t do something I should so easily be able to do, perhaps this delusion would fade itself away. It was his way of proving to me that I was, indeed, a little crazy.

But something about his tone rubbed me the wrong way. I knew my story was hard to swallow for the average person, but I knew I was who I said I was and it was a little insulting to be questioned, despite all his millions of reasons he had to question me. So I pursed my lips, reached for the six inch chef knife that was in the block on the kitchen island near where I was seated. My eyes settled across the kitchen at the cantaloupe on the counter near the sink.

“See the melon?” I muttered.

With a flick of my wrist, I sent the knife screaming across the kitchen to be buried hilt-deep square in the middle of the melon. It rocked upon impact and settled, impaled.

I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow and looked at the stunned faces of my cousin and his husband. Lucky’s eyes were huge and he pointed at the cantaloupe. His voice was an octave higher.

“That was just a trick!” he nearly squeaked.

“Lucky—“

“Anyone can learn how to do that. There was a girl I used to work with years ago in Vegas who could throw knives. She couldn’t even tie her shoe, but that bitch could throw a knife.”

I sighed, then stood up. I pressed wrinkles out of my jeans with my hands, reached up to tie my hair in a bun, then sprang from a standing position into a front flip, vaulting up and forward, ass over head, landing on both feet on the kitchen counter.

Lucky and Kenneth were gob smacked, mouths agape and eyes just as wide.

“Are you happy?” I asked in a snarky tone. “And I’m not a ninja.”

Honestly, I was as surprised as they were, even though I knew in my heart I could do it. I could do it all.

Except have my soul mate by my side.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

The siblings returned to their childhood home in Salisbury, kept up only by the staff of six who maintained the property. There they exchanged virtually no conversation and changed into jeans and boots and jackets and started off to the ancient tunnel on the edges of their holdings.

Fergus- Viscount Averill- was a big handsome man with broad chest and ruddy cheeks and a thick auburn beard. He spoke little but his eyes usually generated the results he desired. He stomped through the brush quietly behind his sister, scanning the surroundings for interlopers and wildlife. 

“You honestly didn’t feel anything?” Martine asked her brother again.

“I was bloody rat-arsed, wasn’t I? I told you.”

“God, you’re useless.”

Fergus snorted. “You wouldn’t be here if I was.”

The entrance to the Stone Age tunnel looked like- and in fact was- nothing more than a hole in the ground, just big enough for a human to wriggle through. Martine was easily able to maneuver through and down, but Fergus had to squeeze himself and waggle his legs about for a few minutes until he finally was released like a cork. He tumbled to the ground, landing square on his backside. He muttered some curses and brushed the dirt from his clothes while Martine used the light from her cell phone to start up the generator to illuminate the lights wired at the top of the tunnel. Once lit, she pulled off her pack and gave a tight smile to her brother.  


“Tea?”

They sat on up-ended crates in the ancient tunnel drinking tea spiked with whiskey from the thermos their father had carried on hunting trips. Martine told her brother again of the feeling she got, the tangible shift of energy that almost knocked her off her heels. 

“Are you sure it wasn’t an earthquake or something?” Fergus asked.

“I am positive that it is the shift we’ve been waiting for all these years. But we must confirm it.” She stood and recapped the thermos. “Ready? It’s a long walk.”

Fergus drained his tea and handed the cup back to his sister. “Off we go.”

***

The tunnel wound underneath the countryside near Stonehenge for miles and miles. Both of the siblings had shed their coats by the time they reached the turn off from the main tunnel. If one was not looking for it, it would be invisible. Martine gracefully slid into the vertical opening in the rock; again, Fergus had to wriggle through, muttering curses under his breath. Once inside the offshoot of the main tunnel, they noticed that the temperature was much lower and both put their coats back on. Martine fished a torch out of her backpack and handed it to her brother so he could lead the way. 

In the distance they could hear the spring gently dripping, although that part of the tunnel was not lit so they could only see as far as the torch light illuminated. The walls of this part of the tunnel were different, rockier somehow, and wetter. Sound seemed not to echo as it had in the main part of the tunnel; instead it seemed to just die beneath their feet. The air was heavier, harder to breathe and more electric. Martine loved it, loved being there- to her, it was knowledge and power. Fergus hated it- to him, it was eerie and otherworldly.

Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity of walking, they came to their destination: the underground spring. The water seeped through the rock creating a crystal clear pool that somehow glowed very lightly and very blue. A smile split Martine’s face as she rushed to the pool’s edge. Fergus shuffled behind with the torch, lighting her way and feeling his lungs just beginning to struggle for breath.

“Isn’t it lovely?” Martine cooed, running her hand through the blue water. “It’s been so long. Grandfather was still alive when we were here last, remember?”

“Can we just get on with it?” Fergus grumbled, pressing his hand against his chest. “I can’t bloody breathe.”

Martine’s hand shot out and grasped her brother’s, pulling it from his chest. She looked at him intensely and sincerely and squeezed his massive hand in both of her own. “Fergus, you must be with me. We must be of one blood, of one mind. You must focus and be with me or this will never work.”

She was the only thing or being in the entire world that could soften him, and he gazed into her blue eyes and licked his lips.

“I’m with you, Marty. You know that.”

Martine flashed him a smile and kissed his hand before releasing it. She nodded. “Ready?”

Fergus nodded back to her, not at all ready.

Martine removed from the backpack an ornate box, adorned with silver and stones and blue velvet. With great solemnity and ritual, she removed from the box a silver chalice. She held the chalice up, shining blue in the light of the water, and turned it from side to side, examining its beauty and meaning. She glanced at her brother to make sure he was watching then gracefully dipped the cup into the water, capturing just a swallow. Again she held it up, dripping from the stem now. With great intention, she ever so slowly brought the chalice to her lips and took the water. Martine closed her eyes.

Fergus watched the ceremony with trepidation. He knew what was going to happen and he didn’t like it. Nevertheless, he reached for his phone and brought up a document then waited. His hand was shaking ever so slightly. Martine began to morph from the beauty that she was into something else. The skin of her face began to sag and wrinkle and her lustrous hair began to thin and gray. Fergus fought the urge to step back. Martine’s back began to form a hump and her fingers began to thin and elongate. A moan began softly in the back of her throat and she clamped her eyes closed to shut out the pain the transformation was causing her. Her teeth disappeared from her head and her eyes clouded over with cataracts, so much so that she couldn’t see. In what seemed like forever and no time at all, the beautiful Martine was now the very epitome of an old crone, hunched over, breathing hard with crusty, struggling breaths. 

She nodded, clenching at her thighs that were now completely engulfed by her jeans.

Fergus began, reading from the document. “Oracle, hear me.”

Martine dropped her head so that her straggly gray hair hid her face. “I hear.”

“We beg of you, Oracle, to reveal the truth.”

“Go on.”

“Oracle, prey, the universe has shifted.”

“It has not.”

Fergus glanced at the document, then back at the Oracle. He had no script for a negative answer.

“Oracle,” he repeated, “the universe has shifted.”

“I am not deaf, boy,” the Oracle replied, peeking through her hair with one blind eye. “Are you?”

“My sister, the Lady Martine, has felt the universe shift.”

“Your sister has only felt a struggle, not a shift.”

Fergus glanced again at the document Martine had created for him; the Oracle was not following the script, and he was at a loss. 

“Prey, Oracle,” he went on, winging it now, “what is the struggle?”

“Of love, as in all things.”

This information was not helpful and he began to shift his weight from one foot to the other. He decided to pull the power card.

“Oracle, we are the reincarnation of Lycos.”

“Do you think me stupid, boy?”

“We need to make the ultimate sacrifice to our father so that he can regain power in the universe.”

The Oracle looked up at Fergus with her whole face, a scowl upon it. “You are a futile flatterer of a dissipated god.” Saliva spewed from her spongy lips.

Fergus did not know what those words meant so ploughed ahead. “How do we make the ultimate sacrifice?”

“How?”

“How.”

The Oracle blinked her milky eyes and turned her head as though she was admiring the blue pool. “A sacrifice is a sacrifice.”

Fergus was never good at puzzles and felt his frustration mounting. “We must kill Xena?”

“That is a sacrifice.”

“The ultimate sacrifice for father.”

“Perhaps so, boy, perhaps so.”

“Where is she? Where is Xena?”

This question seemed to flummox the Oracle for a moment, and she screwed up her face. “She is dwelling amongst the painted ladies.” She snickered very quietly to herself.

Fergus became frustrated with the uncommitted answer and grabbed the Oracle by the arm so that she must face him. He yelled, “The ultimate sacrifice for Father is the death of Xena, yes or no?”

“I cannot speak for a dissipated god!” she yelled back, her unseeing eyes focused on his face.

“You speak the future!” he protested.

“You asked for the truth!”

“Then tell me this, old woman: will the death of Xena shift the universe?”

She pursed her lips wetly and paused a moment. “I know two things, boy: one, the death of Xena will end the cycle of sacrifice and defeat, and two, you should not touch the Oracle!” 

She, with her other withered hand, blasted Fergus squarely in the chest with a large and crackling ball of blue energy, sending him hurtling across the cave, slamming him against the rock wall where he puddled to the ground like water. He would wake up many minutes later to his sister’s pretty face, madly asking about what the Oracle had said.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Shelia was only a little bit older than me but was a former teacher of mine and a good friend. She was blond and gorgeous with a ready, warm smile. She taught classes at Cal while raising her 10 year old adopted son Milo. She welcomed me into her home with open arms and Milo offered to play video games with me, on which I took a raincheck. The calmness that had begun to come over me on my drive expanded at the sight of her. 

When I was a young, struggling, starving student and later a young, struggling, starving artist, Shelia took me under her wing and was a constant source of encouragement and wine. I had always felt close to her, and I trusted her as much as I trusted my mother. Often my home for days on end was her couch and she helped me put together my first show. Besides my mother, she was my other safe place to land, and a safe place to land was definitely something I needed.

We dined on grilled black bean burgers and jicama slaw and white wine. Shelia told me stories about her job and the adventures she and her son took hiking in the peninsula hills. I felt myself smiling for the first time in a long time as Shelia and her son laughed at their own stories. 

After Shelia lit the insect repelling torches and she sent Milo to bed and scolded at me for smoking a cigarette, she sat with her feet tucked up under her on the opposite side of the loveseat from me and sipped raspberry tea.

“Spill it, sister,” she said, “What’s going on?”

I blew blue smoke from my lips and considered what I was going to tell her. “I’m running away.”

“No,” she responded with a chuckle, “really?”

The sky was fogging over and a slight chill began to fill the air; I shivered.

“Running from what, sweet pea?”

I looked at her, my pretty friend with the soft gray-blue eyes, and wondered how much I could tell her.

“There’s something going on with me that I don’t want to deal with.”  


She dropped her chin and smiled a small smile, keeping her eyes on me. “You’re not usually a cryptic person, so let me ask you this: what’s her name?”

Shelia made me laugh quietly. “Paula. Her name is Paula.”

“And she- Paula- is your soul mate from a former life and the prospect of being with her is scaring you out of your wits.”

Something in her tone made me whip my head towards her and study her face. She smiled mischievously at me and I swear I saw a twinkle in her eye. 

“I, uh…” I replied intelligently, staring at her.

Shelia winked, then purposefully leaned towards me so she was sure that I heard what she was about to say . “There’s nothing about you I don’t know, Gabrielle.”

As though I’d received an electric jolt, I jumped up from my chair, dropping my plastic goblet of wine and my cigarette. I stumbled backwards like I was drunk, and my head was swimming and my ears were ringing. I had to have misheard her! She sat there, smiling, serene, while I stumbled around like a lunatic.

“What did you say?” I gasped, reaching behind me for the arm of a chair to steady myself.

Shelia laughed. “Sit down before you fall down. I didn’t think you drank that much.”

The blood pounded in my ears and I felt light-headed and mildly nauseated, as though I might faint. Shelia came to me and took both my hands and sat me back down on the loveseat, then sat in front of me on the coffee table, speaking soft soothing words to me as though I was a frightened puppy.

“Listen,” she said softly, holding both my hands, “I have been with you through every single one of your lifetimes, whether you knew it or not, whether you knew me or not, whether you could see me or not.”

I could barely breathe much less speak. “Who are you?”

She winked and smiled and squeezed my hands. “Look at me, darlin’. Look into my eyes.”

So I did, and I saw everything, every silly, sweet thing she’d ever done for me, every smile, every wrinkle of her nose, every stupid joke, and the expanse of her huge and loving heart. She was the one we went to for help and saved when she needed it, who frustrated us and made us laugh and who was really the only constant in our lives.

I did not want to see a second of this.

I began to shake my head no. This could not be happening.

Shelia began to shake her head yes.

I shook my head no. I would never, ever escape my past. The place I went to hide and lick my wounds was right smack in the pit of vipers that were the ghosts that haunted me.

“Oh, yes, babe, yes, indeed,” she said with a laugh. “Crazy, right?”

I whispered her name.

“In the flesh, of a sort,” she responded. She took on a concerned expression. “Hey, no, no, no, no passing out. Sit up, come on, head between your knees. Let’s go. Breathe, sweet pea, breathe.”

The next few minutes were a blur of hanging on to consciousness. When I did begin to come back to myself, I was still bent over, my head between my own knees which were between hers and she was rubbing my back, cooing softly. Slowly, I sat up and stared at her, studying her face. It wasn’t the same face, but it was her face.

“Aphrodite,” I whispered.

She winked and touched my face.

“Are you still a god?”

“Well, not like the old days, but, yeah, I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

“What about Milo?”

“What about him? He’s amazing and gorgeous and brilliant and my adopted son from Laos. Not a god.”

“Does he know?”

She laughed as though I’d said something ridiculous. “Of course not! I’m going to live out my life in this body, just like a normal mortal would do, and then I’ll keep an eye on him from above.” She shrugged as though it was a piece of cake.

“Like you kept an eye on me?”

“And Xena, yes.” She smiled maternally at me and touched my face again. “I think that’s enough surprises for tonight. I’ve got you set up in the guestroom, why don’t you go nighty-night and we’ll talk more tomorrow. Oh, and by the way,” she reached over and delicately touched my forehead with the pad of her middle finger which left a tingling sensation on my skin, “no more smoking.”

***

My first instinct was to pack up my stuff and run, but how do you run from a god? Everything I’d worked for in this life would never be the same. Did my work even matter anymore? Did anything I wanted to do, to see, to accomplish in my life, did it even matter?

I lay on the well appointed bed in the exceedingly cozy guest bedroom in Shelia’s house and pulled out my laptop to look at the collection of my photos. Some were my pieces, pieces of art that I loved and were proud of, and some were photos of my life. There were pictures of me and Michelle, goofing and drinking more than we should have been. There were pictures of the mother-daughter vacation in Barbados; Mom looked so happy and so pretty. There were pictures of me behind the scenes at a celebrity photo shoot I’d been hired to do, me explaining to an A-list celebrity how I wanted her to sit. There I was, laughing at a friend’s birthday party. There I was, sitting on the floor next to my cousins at Christmas. There I was, riding a horse. There I was, standing in front of my father with his arms around me from behind, both of us grinning for the camera. That one sent me over the edge, wondering how deep the emotional abyss could be.

“Aphrodite?” I called softly through my tears.

As though summoned, she came through the bedroom door. She wasn’t wearing pink lingerie; she was wearing Tweety Bird pajama pants and a Blondie concert t-shirt with the sleeves cut off.

“You called? Oh, sweetie.”

Shelia wrapped me up in her arms and cuddled me against her breasts. She smelled like springtime and I was glad to have her chest and shoulder to cry against.

“What do I do, Shel? My life is worthless now.”

I felt her press a kiss into my hair. “Not at all, not at all. Oh, honey.”

A thought suddenly occurred to me and I pushed away from her. “Why did you let us die?”

“Mortals always die.”

“No, I mean,” I got off the bed and began to gesticulate and pace, “die badly. I was hit by a car once. No, a bus. A bus! Why did you let me get hit by a bus?”

Shelia pulled her knees up and hugged them to her chest, looking very concerned and flummoxed. “Sweet pea--”

“And I was on a boat that sank! And, one time, I lived out my life in a stone cell, alone.” 

A memory slammed into my mind and my heart so hard I gasped and grasped at my chest.

“You let her be tortured to death!” I spat, pointing at Shelia, “you let her be tortured to death and you let me watch!”

“Gabrielle, please,” she pleaded, looking towards the door, “Milo is sleeping!”

I tried to be mindful of the child sleeping just down the hall, but I was beginning to see red and my face and body flushed the same color. I stomped back and forth on the far side of the bed.

“She was murdered and hanged and she got tuberculosis once and died alone in an asylum! She-- she disappeared and was blown up and starved to death! She was shot! She had smallpox! How could you let all that happen, Aphrodite? If you were watching over us, how could you let that happen?”

“It wasn’t my decision, Gabrielle, you’ve got to believe me,” she implored, her eyes brimming with tears, “if it was up to me, I mean, you know me, happy endings for everyone. But it wasn’t up to me!”

“Then what was the point of watching over us?” I planted both my hands on my hips, tears welling in my own eyes.

“To make sure you didn’t see something you weren’t supposed to, and to help maintain the balance of good and evil. Other than that, I could do nothing.”

“Why not? You’re a god!”

“The terms of life and death are decided by the Fates, not me. It took every ounce of negotiation skill I had just to get them to agree to me watching over you, and you know that’s not my strong suit.”

I stared at her a moment and the rage and anger at her began to subside just a little; it shifted to another target that was nowhere to be found. I bit the inside of my cheek.

“God, I hate them,” I muttered. I looked up. “I thought I broke their—“

Shelia wiped her eyes and gestured with her hand. “They made another one. It broke my heart to see you die, to see Xena die, to see you have to live alone. You’ve got to believe that. But you weren’t always alone. Do you remember when you were in that stone cell the guard that brought you fruit?”

“That was you?”

She smiled. “Yes. And that old woman that lived upstairs from you in World War II, the one who shared her ration tickets with you?”

“That was you, too?”

Shelia nodded enthusiastically, wiping at her eyes once more. “And a bunch of other times, too.”

I had a vague realization that I didn’t want a cigarette, but I was still agitated and confused. I got up on my knees on the bed and rubbed my face with my hands. So much about everything that had happened to us made no sense, yet fit perfectly into the fabric of our lives.

“Wait a minute,” I said, dropping my hands, “you never revealed yourself to me all those other times. Why this time?”

She took a deep breath and looked at me with a gentle, compassionate expression. I could see she was clearly struggling with something. Finally, she reached out her hands for mine, which I gave her. 

“Honey,” she said, “there’s something I have to tell you.”


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

“You’re useless!” Martine spat at her brother. She stomped the floor of the library of the Salisbury house, out of her jeans now and into something in which she was more comfortable: a white Dior organdie dress and nude Jimmy Choo pumps. 

Fergus sat in the leather chair and drank vodka, not meeting his sister’s eye. 

“What did she say again?” Martine demanded.

“I’ve told you,” Fergus repeated, “she’s dwelling amongst the painted ladies.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Martine screeched, beyond frustrated.

“How the fuck should I know?” Fergus yelled back, feeling less chagrined and more irritated.

They were silent for a moment.

“Whores?” Fergus offered.

“Well, that narrows it down, thank you very much.”

He drained his glass and put it on the table with a loud tap. “Is she even worth killing? That twat of an oracle didn’t give me a straight answer!”

Martine pointed a manicured finger at him. “She’s worth it. Even if she’s not, she’s worth it to me.”

“If she’s not the ultimate sacrifice, then this is all in vain, Marty,” Fergus protested, unwilling to traipse around the world with no clear target, “and we don’t even know what she looks like.”

“Don’t worry about that, if we can get close, we’ll recognize her.”

“We never have before,” Fergus groused, standing to pour himself another drink.

“We’re close this time, Fergus, we’re close.” Martine gazed out the window at the impending dusk over her family’s estate. They had never been so close before, and she’d be damned if she was going to let this opportunity slide by. No matter what it took, no matter who she had to bulldoze, she would kill Xena. She daydreamed absently about slitting the warrior’s throat.

Fergus grunted and filled his glass. They remained in that room in silence, each lost in their own thoughts- hers of killing Xena, his of perhaps sneaking away later to the pub.

On a hunch (and Fergus didn’t have many of those) he pulled out his cell phone and did a quick Internet search. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Ha!” he exclaimed, pointing at the screen of his device, “Marty, I know where she is!”


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

We had gone down to the Sutro Baths to take pictures while Milo was in school. It was cold and foggy on the coast and Shelia wanted to experiment with some long exposure shots. I stood looking past the ruins of the baths out to the sea, camera in hand but taking no pictures. Shelia was jabbering on about some pictures she’d sold, but I wasn’t really listening.

“Explain it to me again,” I said, interrupting her mid-story.

As I watched the tide roll out, I heard her take a deep breath.

“This is it, this is the last lifetime you have to live. As long as you and Xena are together, you’ll be able to go Elysium. As long as neither of you hastens your deaths, or does something stupid, basically as long as you live out this last life together as the Fates have decreed,” she grinned and shrugged cutely, “happily ever after.”

I sat down on an ancient block of broken concrete and watched some gulls overhead. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around what she was telling me.

“So, all I have to do is find Paula?”

She peered through her viewfinder intently. “Calling her Paula doesn’t make her any less Xena.”

“We get together, and she could die tomorrow and I would have to live out my life- again- without her.”

“But Elysian Fields! They’re so pretty.”

I watched her adjust her filters and focus and attempted to determine what it was that she wasn’t telling me; there was always something withheld with Aphrodite.

“As the Fates decree,” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Did the Fates decree that you step in and push me towards Paula?”

Shelia froze for just a split second, then looked up at me with a smile. She pointed at me jokingly. “You got me.” She held up a neutral density filter. “I have a filter on them for a little while. I mean, they know we’re friends, but they don’t know that you know who I really am.”

“Won’t they know once you take the filter off?”

“I’ll take care of that, don’t you worry your pretty little head. Come over here and take a look—“

I stood up with my hands and my hips. “Aphrodite, I swear, these last few weeks have torn me in two, so, please, tell me the truth! Why did you reveal yourself to me behind the Fate’s backs? What’s going on?”

She liked her lips and studied the ground for a moment before she began. “You know how when you use your GPS, there’s a—“

“Aphrodite!” I barked, feeling my head begin to pound.

“No, really, bear with me. You know how when you use your GPS, there’s a little icon that represents you? Well, that’s kind of how I know where you and Xena are, it’s sort of what I see in my mind. Sort of. Mine's better, more ethereal, more pinks and purples.”

I gestured with my hand that she should get a move on with the story.

Aphrodite took a small step towards me. “I see your icon so clearly, I usually do. And I usually see Xena’s clearly, too. Lately, though, it’s been getting harder and harder to pinpoint.”

I scrunched my eyebrows together. “What does that mean?”

“She’s coming in and out, like I’m getting a bad signal. She’s fading.”

“What does that mean exactly?”

Shelia wiped her fingers of her lips and turned her head to look at the bay for a moment, then turned back to me. “She’s giving up, hon. For the first time in all these years, she’s giving up.”

“On what? On me?”

“On you, on herself, on the future. Everything. You changed her, all those years ago. She became a different person, someone who could look forward with clarity and confidence. But this time, something’s altered, something’s turned. I, uh, I felt it.”

I pressed a pressure point above my nose. “What do you mean, you felt it?”

“I felt it. It was like an earthquake, sort of. A shift. And I knew right then I had to step in. You see,” she stepped closer to me, “a lot in space and time and beyond relies on you and Xena and your connectedness. If that’s broken, then a lot falls apart.”

I searched her face. “Is that why the earthquake in China happened? And the flood in Wales?”

“No, those were just coincidences. That flood was a bitch, wasn’t it?”

I swallowed my impatience. “Aphrodite, what happens if we don’t get together?”

It looked as though Aphrodite swallowed some impatience, too. “Sweetie, if you don’t get together, the dark forces win.”

“Ares, you mean.”

She shook her head. “Not really. My brother is lost to the wind as an entity. He exists- read the Internet, look at the world, you know he still exists. But not as a single pure force. But he gains a lot of power if you two don’t reunite. It will shift the balance of power, which is precarious as it is, if you two don’t get back together and Xena’s allowed to embrace her dark side again.”

I toed at the sand beneath my sneaker and considered what Shelia was telling me. At one point in my life, this would have sling-shotted me into action. All for the greater good. I would have had to find her, find out what was wrong, spread my particular brand of logic, optimism and positivity all over her and save her sorry soul. At that moment, however, I still kind of wanted to run, or at least have a temper tantrum.

“It’s always about her!” I yelled out to the ocean.

“Now, wait a minute!” Aphrodite barked. Her tone of voice made me look at her; it was a rare occasion that Aphrodite snapped at anyone. “It’s about the both of you! I know Xena is no walk in the park, but look at you. You haven’t smiled more than twice since you’ve been here.”

“Do you mean me or the other me?”

She planted her hands on her hips and shot me the sternest look she could muster. “I mean Evan and Gabrielle both! Look at you! Look at this place! And you haven’t taken one shot. That’s not you. Both Evan and Gabrielle can appreciate beauty, even cold and foggy beauty! These lives mortals are handed, whether you’re a warrior or an artist or a plumber, there are certain things that are out of your control. But you can control how you look at your circumstances and you, missy, are missing out the time you could be having with your soul mate. No one knows when their time with their soul mate is going to end and I’ll grant you, you’ve gotten the fuzzy end of the lollipop stick in this deal. But it’s only because you’re the stronger of the two of you. Look, it’s only been a little while and I’m already having trouble finding Xena. And you, well, you certainly don’t have any cheery animated woodland creatures and butterflies buzzing around you right now.”

I plopped back down on my cement and studied the stern look Aphrodite was sending me. We glared at each other for a few seconds then, without a word, I lifted up my camera, pointed it in her direction and took her picture. Her expression morphed from a scowl into a smile and she plopped herself down next to me.

“If she embraces her dark side…?” I asked.

Aphrodite rested her elbows on her knees and laced her fingers together. “I don’t know.”

“She wouldn’t…?”

“I don’t know.”

“Jesus,” I grumbled, lifting my cap to run my fingers through my hair. “Do you know where she is?”

“She’s near.”

“Near?”

Aphrodite jerked her thumb vaguely eastward. “The City.”

“Jesus Christ, she followed me.”

She shook her head as she gazed out at the water. “No, I don’t think so. I think we just got lucky.”

Lucky. I wasn’t sure what my relationship with that concept was.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20  


I had gone to law school in San Francisco and had lived with John while I was there, so I knew The City pretty well. I was looking forward to the day when John and Kenneth would have to stop hovering over me and worrying about me and go back to work. John came in every morning, cheerful as hell, wondering if I wanted to go shopping or brush my hair. Kenneth came in and asked if I wanted to go to SFMOMA or see a movie. I declined all their offers. I walked the neighborhood and helped prepare meals, attempting to maintain contact with my cousin and his husband if no one else. I wore busted up denim shorts and a t-shirt and read books from their bookshelves: _The Metamorphosis, Witness to Nuremburg, The Crucible, Flowers for Algernon._ I drank bottles of wine and gallons of coffee.

On a daily basis, the darkness I could see and feel became more palpable; it was slowly inching in from the edges of my vision. I didn’t know what it would do once it completely enveloped me, but the truth was that I didn’t care. Let it come in. How would it change things? I had no soul mate, no future, no job, no spouse, not even a car. I couldn’t see how a little darkness could make anything worse.

Finally and after an enormous effort with Oscar-worthy acting, I convinced John and Kenneth that I was getting better and they decided that, rather than taking turns, they both could return to work, which they did. I was relieved to be alone. I showered and dressed and walked to a Muni stop, where I hopped a bus and eventually got off on Columbus. From there I made my way to Caruso’s, a hole in the wall bar we’d found in law school. For a little while, it was transformed from a neighborhood dive bar to an ironically trendy hangout but eventually it was deemed too far out of the way to continue to return to. I liked it however, and often went on my own. It was the place in which I could stare at the signed and framed photograph of Nino Benvenuti that was hung with pride over the register, get drunk, listen to Santana and very occasionally get shamefully laid.

The place hadn’t changed: "Black Magic Woman" was playing as I opened the door to the dark place that stank of hardwood floors drenched in beer for decades. I ordered a scotch. It was one o’clock in the afternoon. I had about three hours before I had to pour myself back on the Muni to get home. Plenty of time to get shitty drunk and really get mired in my self-pity. A perfect afternoon.

I thought about my parents, who’d been gone for years and years. I thought about John and how happy he was with Kenneth. I thought about EJ and hoped he was happy. I thought about my friends and my job. I thought about my Mercedes. But I did not think about Gabrielle. She wanted me gone, so I was gone. I would give her none of my time or effort. It didn’t matter to her how much I loved her, how much I needed her, how I always tried to give her everything I could, everything that was in my power to give her- that didn’t matter to her. There was nothing I could do, so I would do nothing, nothing but drink. And so I did.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

With a bit of trepidation, they had told the limo driver to take them to the painted ladies. Without hesitation, the driver sped away from the airport and Martine and Fergus exchanged looks. Within thirty minutes, the driver had stopped the car in front of a row of beautifully painted and well kept Victorian homes. They were bright and colorful and pristine and sent Fergus into a laughing fit.

“The Painted fucking Ladies!” he very nearly squealed. 

The driver then pointed one out that was very famous from television.

Martine looked unimpressed as she tapped away on her cellphone. “So, now what, Professor? Knock on each door until she answers?”

“Driver, are these the only Painted Ladies?”

The driver responded no, that there were a lot of restored Victorians in the area, but Postcard Row was the most famous. Unless, of course, you were in Baltimore. Or Cincinnati. Or a hundred other cities.

Fergus was about to nearly reach through the window and throttle the driver but Martine put a soothing hand on his arm.

“We have the right city,” she said softly. “I’m sure we have the right city. It’s just a matter of… Driver, can we park here for awhile?”

“No, ma’am, it’s residential.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means that if I stay here much longer I’ll get a ticket. You could go to the park?” He jerked his finger at the grassy area across the street. 

Martine glared at the park through the tinted windows. “I suppose they sell hot dogs there.”

“Yeah, I think there’s a guy with a cart.”

“Wonderful.” Her tone was not convincing. “Why don’t you let us out and come back in about an hour?”

***

As she had expected, there wasn’t much motion or movement in the front of the houses, except for all the tourists taking pictures. She sat on her jacket, her arms propping her up and her legs crossed in front of her, sunglasses perched on the bridge of her nose. Fergus sat next to her, watching the house sporadically when he wasn’t watching the young girls that were sunning on the rare sunny and warm San Francisco afternoon. Evidence of several hotdogs and a soda were on the grass next to him.

And then there was movement; a man came out into the front of a house to retrieve a box that was left on the stoop by a mail delivery service. He was small, Hispanic, very handsome. Something stirred in Martine, as though she was a predator spotting her prey. Her chin lifted her eyes narrowed, her spine tingled.

“That’s Xena?” Fergus asked, picking up on her interest, then looking from his sister to the man returning inside his house.

“No, no, that’s not her, but there’s a connection there. That’s where she lives. She’s not there, though.”

“You sure?”

She stood and shook out her jacket. “Positive. Where is that ridiculous driver? I want to go to the hotel. Who do we know in this city?”

***

Harold Chen was a skinny, scruffy former heroin addict, currently dependent on methadone. He was a CI for the police and a lot of other things for a lot of other people, including someone who was acquainted with the Viscount Averill and the Lady Martine. Thus he was hired to do surveillance on the house on Postcard Row. So while Martine and Fergus stayed at the upscale boutique hotel and enjoyed the indoor pool, spa treatments and gourmet cuisine, Harold was sitting in a rented Ford Fusion with a bag of McDonald’s, an expensive camera with a zoom lens, a pair of binoculars and a cell phone. He was in view of the Victorian house, and he remained in view of the house for 16 hours until he was finally able to take a picture of someone leaving the house and walking down the street.

Fergus was drinking tea and watching a cricket match on his laptop when his phone indicated that he had a picture. It was of a woman of Hispanic descent, tall with dark brown hair pulled into a ponytail. She had on a pair of sunglasses and carried a cross-body bag.

“Marty,” Fergus called, standing and making his way to the adjoining room.

He found his sister applying make-up at the vanity.

“This just came,” he said, showing her the picture.

Martine gave a sharp intake of breath and pressed her hand to her chest as she examined the picture.

“Tell him to follow her,” she growled, a small smile making the corners of her mouth curl, “we found her, brother. We found the warrior bitch Xena. Open a bloody bottle of champagne! Father will rise again!”


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

It was decided that we would drive into San Francisco and locate Paula the next day, a Saturday. That way, Milo could spend the day and night with his best friend Jacob, something which made him exceedingly happy. After he was told, he ran off to begin packing his video games and soccer ball. 

I wondered if I was doing this because I wanted to or because I had to. Aphrodite thought it was a good sign that I even had the conundrum at all. I wasn’t so sure.

It wasn’t like the old days in which she could just transport herself or others to wherever she wanted to go; we had to drive. My stomach was in knots and it took every ounce of willpower I had not to turn the Cherokee around.

What would I do with her after I found her? Move her to Vancouver? Had she already set something up in the Bay Area? Could she even practice law in Canada? And how long was it all going to last? 

Aphrodite had been busily chatting about while I was driving, telling stories about Milo and a couple reminisces about when Paula and I were different people. It dawned on me, slowly, that she had gone quiet. I glanced at her and saw that her face was knitted into a frown.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“We have to hurry, Gabrielle. Something going wrong or haywire or something.” She grasped her seat. “Once we get into the city, I’ll navigate you.”

“Is something wrong? Is she OK?”

“I don’t know,” she said, biting her fingernails. “I don’t know. Just hurry a little faster.”


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

On what had become my usual stool at Carauso’s, I was well on my way to being completely plastered when two men sat on either side of me. One was small and snivelly and sickly looking, but he had a good evil glare, I had to hand it to him for that. The other was big, burly and brawny, and he, too, had a fairly decent evil glare. They both stared me down in the mirror on the other side of the bar. It took my impaired senses a long time to recognize him.

“Well, son of a bitch, it’s Lycus!” I said with a laugh, turning to greet him and slap him on the shoulder as though he was my old friend. I yanked my thumb over my shoulder. “Who’s your little buddy?”

“That’s Harry,” Lycus replied.

“Harold,” Harry corrected him.

I called for a round of drinks for me and my friends. I could see Lycus watching me, but he was anxious for his drink, too. This was a good sign.

“So, what have you been up to all these eons, Lycus, old friend?” I asked. “How’s your dad? Still dead?”

“In body only,” he muttered, sipping his whiskey, his accent becoming evident, “not in spirit.”

“True. He’s got staying power, I’ll give him that.” I shot my drink. “Who’s ready for another?” I spun in my seat. “Harry?”

“Harold.”

I spun back to Lycus. “So, what’s going on, Lycus, old buddy, old pal? You haven’t told me what you’re doing in San Francisco.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m finishing this drink, and then you’re coming with us.”

“Then I guess I’d better have one more for the road.”

He lifted his glass to me. “Cheers.”

As my final drink was poured, I turned again to Lycus. “Hey, I have a question.”

“Fire away.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“Definitely.”

“Is it going to hurt?”

“Absolutely.”

“This day’s just getting better and better. Since it’s going to hurt, mind if I have just one more teeny tiny drink? You have one, too, on me.”

He considered me, his hairy face almost looking benevolent. “Sure, why not?”

The plan was that I was going to get the men so drunk that it would be easy to take them out. The actuality of the situation was that I was so hammered that I’d forgotten that I was Xena in Paula’s body. Paula had a doubtlessly great body for a lawyer, but she didn’t have the warrior’s body that I needed. Still, though, I had skills and knowledge that was so old it was instinct. I would give these two a run for their money and it would be great fun. I’d either be successful in my plan, or they would kill me.

There was only one way to find out.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Aphrodite must have bitten her nails down to the beds as we drove around San Francisco, zeroing in on Paula’s signal. She would tell me “Left here,” and I would turn left. All the while her face was a countenance of concentration and concern.

I was going through myriad emotions as I drove and took directions. I was angry at her for putting me in this position. I was sad that I hadn’t seen it coming. I wanted to keep running, to get as far away from her as possible. I wanted to run to her and take care of her because, clearly, she wasn’t able to take care of herself, something I’d long suspected. And once I got her I wanted to hug and kiss her, and then beat the living tar out of her myself.

In the moment, though, as I was driving through the streets of San Francisco, taking navigation from the God of Love, I realized I could only take everything one moment at a time, one left turn at a time. I would deal with the rest later.

“Here!” Aphrodite yelled.

I stomped on the brakes. She pointed at the corner bar in the run down building with an offset front door, the iron gates rusted and open, the flyers in the window outdated and sunbleached. Even through the car window I could smell urine.

“She’s in there!”

“Of course she is,” I muttered as I backed the Cherokee up to park on the side of the road.

Just as we were getting out of the car, we saw her. As if from nowhere, a black limo pulled up and Paula was being guided out of the bar by an enormous bearded man wearing a suit on one side of her and a smaller Asian man in black on the other side of her. She did not look particularly coherent, and I immediately had a bad feeling.

“Hey!” I bellowed and began to sprint across the street.

The big bearded man saw me as I neared, his eyes widened and we made eye contact. I saw fear in his eyes as I ran towards him as he held Paula up with his hand under her arm. I could not see her face as her hair was covering it. He used his other hand to shove at the small Asian man.

“Deal with that,” he grunted as he shoved Paula into the back of the limo.

The smaller man seemed a little confused, stumbled a little, watched the bigger man shove Paula into the car, then turned to see me coming for him, sliding cop-style over the hood of the limo. The limo was in movement before I even lost contact with it. Realizing my best bet was the smaller man, in one flowing movement from dismounting the hood of the car to placing my feet on the sidewalk, I grabbed him by the front of his jacket, spun him around and smashed his back up against the building. Absurdly, I noticed some inane graffiti by the side of his head, written in what looked to be pink nail polish: “Garbage only, not trash.”

Before I even thought about it, before I could even weigh the pros and cons, I applied the pinch. I got very close to his face and held tight to his jacket and shirt in my fists.

“I just cut off the flow of blood to your brain, motherfucker. You have thirty seconds to tell me where he was taking her.”

He coughed and gurgled and his face was getting red and a little dribble of blood was beginning to come from his nose.

I shook him, knocking his head against the wall, wanting to knock it even harder. “ _Tell me before I leave you here to die!_ ”

“Sausalito,” he gasped, grasping on my one of my wrists limply.

“Where?”

“Some mansion-“ Gurgle, gasp. “I don’t know, I’m not the driver!”

“What’s the name of the other guy?” I growled, tightening my grip on his clothing and pushing him harder against the wall, causing him pain.

“I—“ he stammered, his eyes squinched shut.

I felt a soothing hand rest on my shoulder. “It’s all right, Gabrielle, I know who he was.”

I put my face so close to the smaller man’s our foreheads were touching. I had a sincere request of him because I was ready, after everything I’d been through, to take it all out on someone else. “ _Give me a reason to let you live._ ”

The hand on my shoulder squeezed gently. “No, Gabrielle, because that’s not who you are. Let him go, sweet pea.”

“If she dies, I’m coming to find you,” I hissed, then released the pinch.

The small man collapsed to his knees and then to his face, his drunken, pitiful self gasping for air, clawing at the dirty cement. I sneered at him, nudged him (almost kicked him but thought better of it) with my boot, then stomped away, pushing past the small crowd that had gathered.

Almost before Aphrodite’s door had shut, I was tearing out, leaving smoke and rubber behind.

“All right,” I growled, flying through stop signs, “who was that?”

“Lycus.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Aphrodite grasping the door handle and the dashboard, hanging on for dear life.

Dear life; what a concept.

“Who the fuck is Lycus?”

“My nephew.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Ares’ son, one of many. He always believed his father would retake his rightful place as a god if the right sacrifice was made.”

“She’s the perfect sacrifice for that,” I grunted, violently making a right. "Is Lycus right?”

“About sacrificing Xena? Left here, watch the pedestrian!”

“Is Lycus right?”

“He might be!” she squealed as I swerved to miss a left-turning car. “If he sacrifices Xena, the balance of power will be completely out of whack.”

“What if this is what the Fates decreed?”

“I highly doubt the Fates would decree anything having to do with Lycus- oh, my god- or any other lunatic. So that means we’ve got to save Xena! Right at the next light to the bridge.”

I gripped the steering wheel so tightly I thought I might have felt it bend a little. I drove in silence, glaring straight ahead as I sped through the night.

“What am I _doing_ here?” I yelled as I maintained a hot pursuit of a maniacal, reincarnated son of an Olympian god who was holding the reincarnated version of a former warlord/fighter for good/my lover and soul mate/current lawyer in order to kill her so that the God of War could take his place at the helm of humanity and its destiny.

Aphrodite offered no explanation as we drove on.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

It was cold, and fairly dark. The walls were brick, old brick, and curved and smelled musty and a little salty. I could see wine bottles on racks along the wall to my right. The floor was stone. The single small window was high, implying that the window, not the room, was at ground level. The glass in the tiny window was etched and unusable as a window. The only artificial light was at the other end of the long and narrow room with one way in and one way out. Their voices bounced off the old brick walls. In between sentences, there was a sound like the ocean coming from the small window.

My plan had not worked at all. I mentally cursed myself for being a self-absorbed narcissist. My head throbbed from the drug I assumed had been slipped, probably by Harry, into my drink. 

“Why does everything have to be a ritual with you?” the male Lycus was saying. “If we’d just killed her when I got here, we would be at the airport by now!”

“Damn it, would you just shut up!” the female Lycus barked at him. “You’ve never understood the importance of this! She needs to be able to watch what I’m going to do to her.”

“Some woman was coming for her! It was probably that girl! Who knows who else is coming here? We need to get this over with and get out of here!”

“In fifteen minutes, not of that will matter, Fergus! Patience!”

It was interesting that there was two of him. From what I could see and hear, he was the brawn of Lycus and she was the brains and anger. He had pursued me once, a long time ago, after the fall of Olympus. He was an angry man with a daddy complex, but I had easily been able to keep him at bay. Now, though- this time, this time was going to be a challenge. My wrists were duct-taped together and resting in my lap, my torso was taped to the back of the wooden chair and my ankles were taped to the legs. Annoying, a little time consuming, but easy enough to detach; they must have assumed I’d forgotten who I was. I decided to let the games begin, so I moaned.

“There, now, she’s awake. Can we just get on with it, Marty?”

He stomped over to me and before looking at me, before doing or saying anything, he slapped me so hard it rattled my brains and my teeth. The sound of the violent skin on skin contact bounced off the brick. Then he grabbed me by the hair and jerked my head up. Again, I had to remind myself that I was Xena in the body of a lawyer and things weren’t coming together as easily or as quickly as I would have liked.

“You have dragged me around the world for generations,” he sneered, “and I’m sick of it. We’re ending it tonight.”

“Oh, good! You’re retiring! You getting a gold watch? Moving to Florida?” I asked, tasting blood in my mouth. He threw my head away from him and stepped away. He looked as though he was gathering himself and trying to maintain his temper. The female Lycus approached with the electric camping lantern in hand.

“Fergus, step away, she’s goading you,” she said, walking with a business-like purpose, her heels clicking on stone. “Hello, Xena.”

“Hello, Lycus.”

“You are not wrong, but, for clarity sake, I am Lady Martine and my brother is Lord Averill.”

“I heard you call him Fergus.”

She walked around me, using the lantern as light, examining me.

“You will address him as Lord Averill. I know this is all very confusing, but it won’t last long.” She reached out and caressed my cheek with the backs of her fingers. “Always so beautiful. It’s been a long time coming, Xena. You do realize that, don’t you? Father must have his due.”

“You father wasn’t worth the cheap leather he made his clothes from!”

I was slapped again. Martine had surprising strength for a many times reincarnated and half-soul of an insane, sadistic demigod. After a moment to clear my head, I shook my hair out of my face and spat at her. I knew, I knew if I could just channel my old self, my old feelings, my old being, I could easily break out of the tape that bound me, explode the wooden chair like it was kindling and take those two idiots out, snap their necks and toss them into the nearby sea. It was simply a matter of direction and concentration. I was and had always been me. 

“Where’s your lover?” Martine asked, standing there in front of me in Chanel, smelling of Lalique, one arm crossed over her middle with the other elbow resting on her hand so she could hold the lantern. She smirked at me. “Did you not hear me, darling? Where is your lover? You see, so many times in the past it was the exceptionally irritating little woman who kept us from you. But I see her,” she looked around the room as though searching for someone, “no where. Pity. The lifetime in which you are finally alone and we are finally two and that is the key.” She looked like a pleased child who had just discovered the answer to a riddle. “The good news for you is that we don’t need to sacrifice her, wherever she is. Just you. So, should we get on with it? If we hurry, my brother and I can make it back home before Father arrives.”

Just a few more seconds, just a few more seconds and the duct tape on my wrists was going to snap. I just needed to keep her talking just for a few more seconds. “You be sure to give daddy my love,” I snarled. “Oh, wait, I will never give that bastard my love.”

This enraged Fergus and he came at me and grabbed me by the front of my shirt and slapped me first open palmed and then back-handed on the return pass. The slaps were explosions and the jolts shook my eyes in their sockets. His signet ring ripped my cheek open on the return slap. He pointed at me as though he were reprimanding me. “You do NOT talk about father like that!” he bellowed.

As he stepped back from me, he gave me a little shove, which sent me falling backwards, which was a bad idea if I needed to be awake for my execution. My head thumped against the stone floor like a gourd. As I faded again into unconsciousness, I heard Martine scolding her brother.

“Oh, very nice, thank you very much, look what you’ve done now!”


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Sausalito is a very charming and typical Bay Area coastal village, with expensive restaurants, expensive real estate, beautiful views and a beautiful marina. It is not a large town, but large enough to be daunting when you’re looking for a single person. Aphrodite was focused and concentrated, commenting that it seemed to be easier at night, and drove me around, directing me more fluidly and with precision through winding roads up a mountain until we ended up outside the gates of an English Tudor with a view of the bay.

“She’s in there,” Aphrodite said, staring at the property. 

I got out and looked through the gate; the driveway was curved and I could only see a corner of the house. I pursed my lips and thought a moment, then went back to the Cherokee.

“Gabrielle,” Aphrodite said to me as she watched me open up the back seat, “what are you doing?”

“Well, unless you can conjure me up some sais or a sword or a staff or a chakram- or a gun, even better- I don’t have a weapon.” I stopped and looked back at her. “Wait. Can you?”

She contritely shook her head no.

“I didn’t think so. So,” I stood up with a lug wrench and jack handle in my hands, “these will have to do.”

She put her hand on my arm. “If you’re going to do this, you have to kill Lycus. There is no other option, I’m sorry. We can’t have him arrested or exiled or anything like that. He has to be killed so that the Fates can deal with him.”

I nodded, feeling more warrior-like than I had in lifetimes. This was a mission, it wasn’t personal and I didn’t take what she’d just said to heart.

“OK. Come on, let’s go, I think we can get over the wall over there.”

“Wait, there’s one more thing.”

“Aphrodite, we don’t have time—“

“Gabrielle!” she snapped, grabbing me by both my upper arms, “I have to leave.”

“What? Now?”

“That filter I was telling you about, it’s fading, I have to go or I risk Xena and your futures.”

“ _Now?_ ”

“I’m sorry, sweet pea, I really am, I only have a few hours left, I need to get home. But you can do this, I know you can. Bring her to my house when you get her out of there.”

“How will you get there?”

She put a calming hand on my arm. “I can get there, don’t worry about me, OK?”

I nodded, my head so full of fear and plans and anger that I couldn’t think. Somehow, Aphrodite knew it, she knew I could do nothing but follow a direction. She squeezed my arms and ducked down to look me directly in the eye.

“Go get Xena,” she said.

I nodded, and began running down the fence-line to find an opportune place to hop over.

***

Where I had climbed the fence was a deep corner of the property that smelled wet and slightly of rotting fruit. I could see one light on in an upper window, and what looked to be a glow of a light around the back of the house. Where would I keep her if I’d kidnapped her? Some place secure, not in a room that had a window, someplace I could chain her, tie her, restrain her to something secure, more secure than a bed or a chair. A garage, maybe, or a cellar.

The light around the back of the house proved to be the light over a cherry door about six steps down- indeed, a cellar or storage room of some sort. The architecture and stone work had been remarkably preserved in the English Tudor style. I perversely thought that it would be wonderful to take pictures here. Quietly, I made my way to the door. On the brick wall was a cast aluminum plaque: “The Rothstein’s Wine Cellar.” The door itself was rounded with a tiny window in the center with a wrought iron gate over it. I could see a light inside. There was a small table in the entryway with what looked to be a half-full martini glass, a 10 inch fixed blade hunting knife with a black handle, a black hawkbill hunting knife and a roll of duct-tape. Turning my head, I could see movement at the far end of the cellar. I heard voices, a male and a female. The male yelled something, and then something dropped to the ground, then the female scolded. I didn’t hear her voice. I wondered if they’d already killed her.

There was only one way in and one way out. I knew I could probably easily dispose of both of them in a more open space, but being in that confined space with that big of a man would prove a challenge, especially with just a jack handle as a weapon. I had no idea who the woman was, or what she was capable of, or if she was armed. She had to be armed, at least one of them did; if they’d expected to detain her with a couple of knives and some duct-tape, they would be in for a surprise.

“Bloody hell!” I heard the woman screech as the sound of her shoes on stone got closer to the door. “Go get some towels! We’ve got to get that bleeding stopped!”

I went up the stairs and crouched low behind some shrubbery.

“What the fuck does it matter?” the male voice yelled back. “We’re going to kill her anyway! Let’s just get it the hell over with!”

“Not like this, not like this! I need to perform the ritual! I want to cut her heart out as an offering to Father!”

“Then do it, for Chrissakes!”

It was going to be a sloppy job with those two knives, I thought to myself. I was having really strange thoughts.

“Please, Fergus, please, for me. For Father. Just do as I ask. We’ve waited so long. Please.”

“Fuck! All bloody right,” he griped.

The handle of the door turned.

“And bring the martini shaker!” the woman called after him before the door closed.

I wound up like a homerun hitter and nearly took the back of his head off with my jack handle. He fell to the ground in a heap. The next step in my plan was to pull him clear so his feet couldn’t be visible from the door, and then take care of the woman, whoever she was, however she was attached to Lycus. However, before the big man even hit the ground, a howl sprang from inside of the wine cellar, like a wounded animal or a Siren. It was blood-curdling, loud, tragic and agonizing all at once, and all it once, I knew why: they were both Lycus, and I’d just killed half of him.

There would be no more discreet covert ops; I had to get in there and get in there fast. I burst through the door and stared down where the light from the single overhead light did not reach. A small light on the floor barely illuminated the two women. The standing woman was doing barely that- she was crouched over and sobbing, slowly making her way towards her victim. She had the hunting knife and she was backing up towards Paula but pointing the knife at me.

“ _You bitch!_ ” she screamed at me. “ _You bloody bitch! You killed my brother!_ ”

By the time she got to Paula, there would be no reason to not simply dispatch her, so I ran. I sprinted the few short steps to the knife-wielding woman and tackled her, grabbing the arm that held the hunting knife and trying to hold it as far away from my body as I could muster. We went thumping and tumbling to the ground, skidding across the cold stone floor into a smallish half-full wine rack with our heads and necks. The wine rack dramatically crashed down on top of us. In the mess of wood and glass and wine, I’d lost track of and my grip on the woman and the jack handle. I had to get to my feet, I had to get my bearings. I pushed off the debris and jumped up I spun around to face where I thought she was. As I spun, I caught a glimpse of Paula, her face bloodied, her hair bloodied and matted, but her brown eyes were wide and trained right on me.

I couldn’t look at her for long because I was tackled again by the female half of Lycus, landing hard back on the mess of broken wine rack and broken wine bottles. She was screaming, yowling like an animal, so loudly and so piercing that it almost felt physical. I struggled to contain her wrists; I didn’t know if she still had a knife. She may not have had a knife, but she did have her teeth and she sunk them into my shoulder. I yelped in pain, planted my right foot in the ground and thrust my hips up, tossing her off of me. Again, I scrambled to my feet. She was quick and resilient and mad as hell and  a spinning kick to the jaw by my boot didn’t particularly faze her. I came around again with my fist and the harsh contact only made her stumble backwards.

I heard her yell something about killing us both, but, considering I’d just given her a bit of a pounding and she wasn’t dropping, I knew I needed something a little more. My eyes scanned the area- an unbroken bottle of wine was near me. I picked it up and threw it with all my strength at her. She saw it coming and was able to block it with her forearm, but it glanced off of her shoulder and head and caused her to stumble again. The throw, though, gave me enough time to start at her again, body slamming her into the wall. This didn’t have the effect I would have liked and she was able to grab on to me and push me backwards. We stumbled back, tripping over bottles. We fell, her on top of me again. I wriggled my arm between us, pressed my palm against her chin and began to push her head back with all my strength. She grunted with exertion. There was something shiny glinting nearby: her knife, all shiny, glimmering beneath a coating of wine. I reached for it, but my damned short arms wouldn’t let me reach it. She did reach it though and was going to come back for me with it. It was one move and I was done for.

Out of nowhere, a foot with remnants of duct tape and chair around the ankle kicked her hand, knocking the knife free. At the same time, almost as though we’d planned it, I kicked Lycus off of me again and retrieved the knife myself. By this time, Paula had shoulder tackled the impending Lycus, dropping her to the ground harshly, she screaming like a banshee the entire time. Paula held her down as I scrambled over to her and pressed the tip of the knife to her throat.

“ _Give me a reason to let you live_ ,” I snarled. 

She met my eyes as the tip of her knife slightly pricked her neck and said nothing.

“Gabrielle, no,” Paula said, looking at me, panting. “You can’t do this.”

I looked into her face and studied her bruised and bloodied skin as I drove the knife into the throat of the female Lycus.

“I don’t have a choice,” I said softly as I felt the muscles and tendons give way to my thrust.

We were both very still, staring at one another until the gurgling subsided. It was then I let go of the handle of the knife. I didn’t want to look at my handiwork, but something was going on beneath Paula’s spread thighs: Lycus' body was warming, or it might have been cooling, I wasn’t sure, I wasn’t close enough, so I looked. Her face, eyes and mouth open, a hunting knife lodged in her neck, covered in blood, her body limp and still, had begun to fade like she was just a special effect from a movie. She began to dematerialize from underneath Paula and after a moment, I could see the stone floor through her. Paula jumped up and we both watched as the body and blood disappeared. The knife, after a moment, tinkled innocuously to the ground.

I grabbed her arm. “We have to get you out of here, now, before anyone comes. Let’s go.”

With a nod, we exited the house and headed towards the fence.

We had no conversation on the way to Aphrodite’s house except when she asked me where we were going. 

I responded only, “To see a friend.”


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

It was funny, but I thought I was seeing a friend. 

Nevertheless, I don’t think I’d ever been so happy to see Aphrodite. I wrapped her up in my arms and felt the love she was so famous for, something I hadn’t fully felt in lifetimes. Admittedly, she could be intoxicating. She smiled at me, a little surprised to see my delight in being with her. Gently, she took me into her bedroom and let me shower and call John, then helped me clean my wounds and found a pair of sweatpants and sweatshirt that would fit me.

Gingerly, I brushed my hair and watched Aphrodite in the mirror.

“She hates me, doesn’t she?” I asked. 

“Of course not! You’re her soul mate, she loves you.”

“I don’t think being a soul mate necessarily precludes hatred.”

“I think it does, and I’m the God of Love so I know. I mean, do you think that she would have gone after you and dispatched Lycus if she didn’t love you?”

“I think what Gabrielle does is for the greater good, not me.”

Aphrodite smiled at me and put her hand on my shoulder. “I think you are her greater good.”

I sighed; I didn’t believe her.

“Let’s go have a drink, shall we?” Aphrodite asked with a consoling smile.

Gabrielle was already sitting on the couch, showered and redressed in shorts and a t-shirt, sitting cross-legged. She looked emotionless, not at all like herself. I wanted to hold her and comfort her, but I was pretty sure that the last person she wanted touching her was me. I sat down at the other end of the couch from her.

“You all right?” she asked, not looking at me.

“I’ll live.”

She snorted and accepted the beer Aphrodite handed her. 

“What about you?” I asked, trying to sound tender. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she replied dismissively, “So, Aphrodite, what now?”

Aphrodite curled up in a chair opposite us, balancing a beer on her knee.

“About what, sweet pea?”

“Lycus, for one.”

“The Fates will be his judge, you just removed him from his earthly bonds.”

“What about Ares?” I asked.

She shrugged. “My brother is a wily one, he’s always around, but you knew that already.”

I nodded; she spoke the truth.

“What about you?” Gabrielle asked.

“What about her?” I asked.

Aphrodite stood up and came over and sat opposite us on the coffee table, smiling. 

“You’re not supposed to know who I am,” she said to me. “I’ve got it covered, for now, but it’s not going to last much longer. So, tomorrow morning, my lovelies, you’ll wake up in Shelia’s house. You won’t remember me as Aphrodite and everything we went through, Gabrielle. You’ll just think you did it on your own. I’m Shelia, by the way, Xena, an old friend of Evan’s. Anyway, I’ll call you Evan and call you Paula. We’ll go pick up Milo- my son- and I’ll buy you brunch.” She shrugged. “That’s the way it has to be.” She turned to face me. “But there’s one thing we have to tell you, Xena.”

And then she went on to tell me that Gabrielle and I were living our last mortal lifetime. If done successfully- or as successfully as the Fates decreed- then we would live out eternity in the Elysian Fields together, just as we’d always hoped. This news would have been more welcome had my soul mate not been attempting to sit as far away from me as possible. I snuck glances at her; she wasn’t watching Aphrodite tell the story nor was she looking at me. She was staring intently at the label on her bottle and gave no indication to what she was feeling.

“So,” Aphrodite said by way of a moral of the story moment, “it would be a lot easier on everyone if you two would just go into my guest room and get it on like the two little bunnies you used to be!”

Gabrielle tipped her bottle straight up and down and finished the last swallow of her beer, then stood up. “Well, that was sufficiently awkward. Good night.”

Aphrodite and I both watched her walk down the hallway and disappear into the furthest room. Neither of us were surprised that Gabrielle didn’t take Aphrodite’s advice, but we were both disappointed. I shrugged resignedly. 

“I’ll sleep on the couch, Aphrodite,” I said with a sigh. “Maybe someday she won’t hate me as much as she does now.”

The God of Love looked so sad. She kissed me so tenderly on the forehead before getting up to get me a pillow and a blanket.


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28

I awoke, confused and hung over and sore with a bandage on my face, lying on a couch I didn’t recognize. As I lay still for a little while, some memories began to return. Gabrielle had saved me from Lycus, a rescue that was added to the list of the times she’d rescued me. How many? My mythology had me forever saving her, but she had always been the rescuer, from the first day we’d ever met.

I sat up and found my way to the kitchen to quench my immeasurable thirst. We were in someone’s house, a friend of Gabrielle’s. Shelly? Sharon? I remembered she was very nice. She had loaned me clothes and left the TV on in the living room on low.

The house was quiet except for the murmur of the TV and the sound of a ticking clock with a pendulum on the wall in the living room, showing the time to be 6:45. I stood at the sink and looked around at the tasteful, bohemian furnishings. There was a skateboard propped up near the sliding glass door the lead to the patio. I remembered someone mentioning a kid, a son. Gazing out at the hazy, just light morning, I wondered what I was going to do. With the events of the previous night and the fact that my soul mate was just down the hall, going to Caruso’s to get stinking didn’t seem like a viable or reasonable option. I supposed that the best option would be to call an Uber and make my way back to John’s house.

“Boy, we really need to get you back up to snuff,” said a voice behind me, startling me, making me jump and clatter the plastic R2-D2 tumbler in my hand against the tile of the counter, “no one ever used to be able to sneak up on you.”

“Why are you sneaking up on me?” I snapped at Gabrielle, trying to calm my pounding heart.

She almost- almost- smiled at me, but it came off more like a smirk. “I’m not sneaking up on you; I’m getting a cup of coffee.” She nodded to the coffee pot, pre-programmed and already brewed. “Would you like one?”

I nodded and I watched her pour two cups. Out of habit, my eyes scanned her for any injuries or wounds that she’d suffered the night before; she was moving a little stiffly but seemed to be no worse for wear. A well of pride surged through me. I had the urge to speak. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say but I trusted my heart to be honest.

“Gabrielle—“ I began.

“Evan,” she said clearly, handing me my cup. “In Shelia’s house, around her, around her son Milo, I’m Evan.”

The correction stunted my intentions and I nodded and sipped the hot drink. 

“I don’t think I thanked you for last night,” I finally said.

She leaned against the opposite counter and sipped her coffee, staring somewhere in the middle distance. “Who would have thought the Greeks would still be haunting us, so many years later?”

Ares had always haunted the back of my mind, in all my lifetimes, whether I knew it was him or not. As the lifetimes continued, he was easier and easier to ignore, but he was always there. I wondered if Aphrodite was there for Gabrielle, or was Artemis with her?

“How long are you staying in the Bay Area?” I asked, trying to sound conversational.

She shrugged, still staring into the middle distance. Then something occurred to her and she looked at me. “What are you doing here, anyway? Did you follow me?”

“No,” I replied, “I’m staying with my cousin in The City, so I’m nearby. Maybe I could take you out to dinner sometime?”

Gabrielle met my eyes and smirked again, as if she’d heard something ridiculously amusing. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

Something about her tone, her self-righteous tone and snarky expression rubbed me the wrong way. I’d been pining after her for weeks and getting nothing in return; I didn’t know if I’d had enough of it, but I’d had enough of it for the moment. I set down my coffee, stepped into her personal space and stuck my finger in her face.

“Now, you listen to me—“ I snarled.

She grabbed my finger. “Don’t you treat me like a child!”

“You’re acting like a spoiled brat!”

“You have no idea what I’m acting like!”

“All I’m trying to do is—“

She squeezed my finger hard. “All you’re trying to do is have your own way!”

I jerked my finger away and stepped just a little closer to her, not touching her but certainly pinning her to the counter. I knew from her moves that I’d seen the night before she could give me a run for my money, if not beat my rusty (but now sober) ass completely, but I didn’t think she would. I was still taller than she was so she had to look up at me, which she was doing with an angry glint in her eye. But for once in this lifetime, she was going to listen to me.

“I am sorry for every time I died, all right?” I said, trying to keep my tones measured but feeling exasperated and lost. “I’m sorry for every injustice I’ve caused you, every slight, every time I treated you disrespectfully, every time I ever underestimated you, and I’m sorry if I did it on purpose or out of a sense of duty or if I did it because I’m selfish. I’m sorry for every bad thing that’s happened to you because you knew me.” I tilted my head down just a bit lower and took a deep breath trying to maintain control of my emotions; a traitorous tear silently escaped my eye and left a trail of wetness down my cheek. “But I’m not sorry for loving you. I’m not sorry for wanting to be near you. And I’m not sorry fighting for us. I’m not sorry for not giving up on us. I’d like to tell you that you deserve better than me, but I can’t. I can’t because you’re the other half of my soul, the other half of me and I am the other half of you. You once said you accepted the consequences of our life together. Do you not accept them anymore? Have you become so much like me that you rage against everything you find to be unjustified, even if it’s out of your control, out of our control? Or are you still my Gabrielle? The sensible one, the sensitive one, the one who knew which battles to fight and which battles to turn her back on, the one who loved me in spite of herself and her good judgment, the one who made me grow, the one that became a hero in own right, the one that I love beyond measure and beyond space and time.” 

For the first time, I saw her. She gazed up at me, her scowl gone and replaced with a tender if not slightly bewildered expression, and I saw Gabrielle. She stared at me and studied my face for a long moment so I didn’t move. Finally, she regained control of her emotions, and with an amused and slight shake of her head and a short exhale, she slowly slid her arms around my neck.

“God, you’re such a manipulator, Xena,” she muttered right before she pulled me down and kissed me.

Every analogy I’d ever read about being kissed by your one true love came true for me just then. She was warm and strong and sensual and lovely in my arms as her mouth explored mine, as though she hadn’t kissed me a million times before. I felt like a teenager again, but from which life, I didn’t know and it didn’t matter- my Gabrielle was back in my arms and I had been given the chance to love her until the end of time.

How I was such a lucky bitch I would never know.

We kissed in the kitchen for I don’t know how long. Feeling my Gabrielle again, strong in body and smooth as silk against my lips, I was reborn. The fingers of one of her hands was in my hair and the other hand was clutching at my back. I began to become inflamed, wanting all of her, to feel all of her, her heart, her soul, her body, her secrets that I knew so well, everything. Would she taste different? Would she sound different? My hands began to wander beneath her top and the warmth and softness of her skin made me groan into her mouth. I would have dropped to my knees in front of her right then and there to take her into my mouth, and I was about to, but she stopped me.

“Wait,” she said breathlessly, “wait a minute.” She grabbed the backs of my arms and held me in place, standing in front of her, “Wait. Listen.”

The local news was on the television. A talking head in a smart suit and expensive haircut was relaying the overnight developments.

“… in San Francisco and Sausalito are investigating the mysterious disappearance of two British nationals, Lady Martine Rudolf and her twin brother Fergus Rudolf, the Viscount of Averill. They checked into the Viridian Spa and Resort on Thursday and hired a limousine and driver Eric Lane. Yesterday, Lane said he drove them to a friend’s home in Sausalito and was told to wait with the car. The Rudolfs never returned. Police found no evidence of a break in but do think there is reason to be concerned for the missing British citizens. The British consulate has been notified. Police are also asking anyone if they’ve seen a late model, grey Jeep Cherokee with Oregon plates in the area to please call Detective Terry Morris of the Sausalito PD at the number at the bottom of your screen. Jen?”

We looked at each other, Gabrielle and I. The one thing we had going for us was that I was pretty sure, although I was barely conscious, the driver never heard Lycus refer to me as Paula. The other thing we had going for us was that the Cherokee had Washington plates, not Oregon plates. Still, it was a little too close for comfort and we were both certain that no one would believe our story. If they caught us long enough to tell our story, they’d charge us with murder. We’d both spent time in jail cells and neither of us were anxious to repeat the experience. We both knew what we had to do.

“Vancouver is really beautiful this time of year,” Gabrielle said, resting her hand on my chest, “I think you’ll really like it.”

I kissed her forehead and hugged her close to me and privately thanked the Fates for forcing her hand. 

“I don’t think we can drive the Jeep, though,” she said. 

An inexplicable warmth suddenly encased us both, and we both took deep breaths, warm in a bubble of safety like I hadn’t felt since I was a child. It was the most unusual and wonderful feeling. We turned to see Evan’s friend Shelia standing in the entryway of the kitchen in a pink robe and a big smile on her face. In my mind, I knew she knew everything she needed to know and she would care for us and we would have to explain nothing. I found myself smiling at her.

“I’ll take care of the Jeep,” Shelia said, grinning. “We’ll report it stolen later today. You two just take care of your trip back to Vancouver. Is there any coffee left?”

***

It was decided that Shelia would take care of getting rid of the Cherokee and I would take care of getting a new car. We would start our road trip in San Francisco so Gabrielle could meet John and Kenneth, then on to Seattle so Paula could meet Evan’s mom, and then finally to Vancouver to begin a new life. Evan had professional commitments she had to attend to, and I would make the decision if I wanted to practice law in Canada or not. While I had enough of my own money to last quite awhile, I wasn’t someone who liked to sit idle.

And, besides, after I’d purchased the new Mercedes SL450 Roadster with options, my bank account was just a bit depleted. But I had a smile plastered on my face as I pulled into Shelia's driveway.

Gabrielle raised an eyebrow at me, her arms crossed over her chest. “Couldn’t have bought something a little less conspicuous?”

“It’s not like I bought the Maybach,” I protested.

She looked at me with a look of confusion on her face, then shook her head. “I don’t even know what that means.”

I smiled and moved to her, leaning against the car and pulling her close by her hips. “It means that I wanted to transport the love of all my lifetimes in the style which she deserves: with heated leather seats, a twin turbo-charged V-6 and satellite radio.” I ducked my head down and nibbled lightly on her neck and felt her relax in my arms.

“You will be required to spoil me, I hope you know,” she breathed, sliding her arms around my shoulders. “And you will be required to stay.”

I pulled back and looked into her eyes. “I can do that; that I promise you.”

She smiled, almost sadly, and settled against me, resting her cheek against my shoulder. I held her tight, propped my chin on her head and looked forward to the future.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the story for now for our two new old heroes. Whether their adventures continue depends on a couple of things: the amount of time I have to give to them, and whether or not anyone wants to see it. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the story!
> 
> "Warriors like us make our own fate!"- Xena

Chapter 29

Detective Morris scrolled through the reports of the sightings of the Cherokee with Oregon plates, of which there were only three, and they were virtually useless. He was pretty sure one of the witnesses had seen not a Jeep Cherokee but a Hyundai. He rubbed the pain in his eyebrow away with his fingers and grunted. For all he knew, the British twins had walked off into the Bay to complete some incestuous suicide pact and they were just causing him a pain in the ass. No leads, no bodies, no nothing.

“Hey, Morris,” said his partner Jenna Chang, “I’ve think I’ve got something interesting. Traffic cams in the Presidio that night pick up a Cherokee blowing through a red light. It’s got a Washington plate, not an Oregon plate.”

“So?” Morris asked, resting his cheek on his fist.

“It was reported stolen from the parking lot in at Hilltop Mall in Pinole last week.”

“Again: so?”

Chang pointed to her computer screen. “That same Cherokee is caught on traffic cam the night of the twins’ disappearance at Bridgeway and Johnson Street at 10:30 pm.”

Morris perked up and blinked, then pointed out the window as though pointing to the very spot just a block away.

“Bridgeway and Johnson?”

Chang smirked. “Bridgeway and Johnson.”

He rose from his seat and came towards his partner’s desk. “Let me see that.”

Morris stood over his partner’s shoulder and looked at her evidence on the screen, toggling back and forth between screens. He grunted and leaned in.

“Who owns that car?” he mused as he began to click through the pages.


End file.
